


Where Moon Vines And Night Shade Blossom

by Kissed_by_Circe



Series: Midnight Diner AU [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Beta Wanted, Centaurs, F/M, Fluff, Football, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Merpeople, Milkshakes, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Scars, Sexual Violence, Sirens, Violence, Werewolves, Witches, Zombies, but just to be sure, kind of, more like threats of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2019-10-21 17:59:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 16
Words: 26,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17647253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kissed_by_Circe/pseuds/Kissed_by_Circe
Summary: There’s something in the clear, icy air, barely alive and yet breathing, and the woods take over abandoned spaces, filling them with gnarly trees. If you looked at this town, you’d see how the forest, how nature itself, presses against the west side, where the old city walls have tumbled down a long, long time ago.Werewolf!Jon 🐺 and Witch!Sansa 🧙♀️ meet and fall in love.





	1. i

**Author's Note:**

> My first time posting something that's not finished yet 🙈 none of the characters belong to me, and I'm not a native speaker, so please forgive me any mistakes I might make ❤️

🌕    June    🌕

 

The city is dipped in darkness, the sun hours from rising over the mountains and claiming back what night took. There’s not a single soul to be seen, no light behind milky windows, as if they know not to go out at this time, when fingers of mist curl around flickering street lights and shadows wander through empty streets and fog rises and crawls up walls like vines of pale air. There’s something in the clear, icy air, barely alive and yet breathing, and the woods take over abandoned spaces, filling them with gnarly trees. If you looked at this town from above, you’d see how the forest, how nature itself, presses against the west side, where the old city walls have tumbled down a long, long time ago.

 

No one’s out at this time but him. They are all afraid of the dark things hiding in the night, but he is too tired to care, and what’s the worst that could happen, anyway? The thing, the creature he fears the most is none other than himself, after all. Losing control, and that tiny voice in the back of his head that whispers dark things, and knowing what he is capable of doing are things he fears so much more than whatever’s lurking in the shadows and behind every corner.

 

The monster inside of him is so much more terrible, so much more gruesome than everything he’s ever seen, both on this side of the wall and beyond it. And it is hungry, ravenous, _starved_ , craving flesh and blood and fear. Or burgers. Fast food has proven to keep the monster at bay on nights like this, when his blood boils and his limbs shake with rage, when he can still feel his opponent’s fear and sweat on his skin, clinging to him like a cloak of lead trying to suffocate him.

 

He’ll have to be home soon – he left Ghost at his apartment, all alone, it was too dangerous to take him to that fight – but there’s still enough time for a little snack, if he finds something that’s still open at this time of night. _Hour of the wolf_ , they called it centuries ago, this dark time when the moon hides and skinless, faceless hunters come out, and they’re right. It’s the hour of wolves, and shadows, and wet, rusty stains on moss and bark and ferns. A time for fights and death and screams, too high and too hollow to be completely human.

 

Jon just wants to wash of the blood and dirt and the leaves that must cling to his clothes, crawl into bed and sleep until the sun’s burning down on this gods-damned city, but first… first he needs food. When he sees the faded neon letters advising

’ **Hot Cof ee * Delicious Bu gers * Op n 24hours** ’

he sighs and drags his bruised body across the street, towards the warmth and brightness shining behind the milky windows.

 

🌕

 

A chill creeps down her spine, an icy hand that wraps around her neck and glides down her back, and she puts down her phone and jumps of the counter. She never faces the door of the diner this late at night, instead she perches herself on the wooden counter with the tips of her high heeled combat boots pointing towards the kitchen behind it, as soon as the first fingers of black mist crawl through the knotty bushes before the building, but whatever is out there is human enough for her to deal with on her own without troubling poor Eleyna.

 

She knows better than to look into the darkness lurking behind the milky windows. They cannot come closer if you look directly at them, or when you don’t see them at all, but if you spot them from the corner of your eye… it’s nothing she’s going to risk, not even now, after working here for months. There’s salt mixed into the silicon she sprayed onto the threshold, runes carved into the frames of windows and door, talismans dangling from the shelf that’s hanging over the counter, but she’s learnt to be careful the hard way.

 

She keeps her gaze fixed on the faded poster that’s pinned to the door leading to the kitchen and hides some runes, written with sharpie just like the ones on the back of her phone and on the soles of her boots. If whoever’s out there needs help, she’ll know it. She always knows. But she won’t just run out there, or let someone lure her into the darker shadows that linger under trees and in back alleys, waiting for unsuspecting pray. She’s not that naïve anymore, even if she sometimes wishes she were. It was so much easier back then.

 

When the bell over the door rings, a rusty, faint sound and yet too loud in the silence that swallows that hangs in the cool night air and swallows ever sound, she wipes around, a fake smile on her lips that may crinkle the corners her eyes, but doesn’t make them sparkle. The creature that has just entered the diner is definitely human, at least mostly, but just enough to make her let her guard down a bit. Monsters and shadows do not bleed that shade of crimson, but this man does, quite literally.

 

There’s a fresh bruise blossoming on his sharp jawline, and his lip is split, colouring the plumpness a rusty red. More gashes on his arms, scratches on his hands, and she doesn’t have to ask to know that he fought something tonight, something that was barely human. “Bathroom?”, his voice, deep and faint and tired, so horribly tired, cracks, and she nods to the door while her smile fades. He’s not completely human. He’s strong. He made it over the threshold.

 

And Sansa grabs her eyeliner from her purse – lying on the shelf above her, unzipped and perfectly organised, as always – and draws a protection spell on her wrist. Maybe she won’t need it, but she’s better safe than sorry. Given, he doesn’t really seem dangerous right now, that stranger, more like a wild creature that fought or fled and found a place to lick its wounds in peace, not searching for blood and violence, but a safe haven to rest for a bit.

 

The sounds coming from the toilettes aren’t alarming, either, water splashing and paper towels rustling and, at one point, hisses and grunts and a breathless swear, the noise that’s so typical for the aftermath of a fight, and Lady’s golden eyes are closed, _a good sign at least_. And this night – the moon has fallen, dust is creeping over the mountains already, basking everything in a greyish pink hue, but she can still feel its pale fingers on her skin, shining through the windows like searchlights, how horribly round and beautiful and bright it had been, she _knows_ what’s out there tonight.

 

She could be wrong on this, but his tired eyes and the bags under them, the scars on his face and hands, faint and silvery in the warm, honey-coloured light of the diner, the blood on his clothes… and the way Lady hummed over her head, her eyes small and dark, her piglet pink nose in the air… she’s not sure, but she suspects something, and she’s rarely wrong, after years and years of practice.

 

 _Definitely_ , she thinks, when he returns, limping now, with his hair slightly wet, exhaustion clear on his tired, but handsome face, _I knew it_. Smiling lightly, she leans onto the counter, waiting for him to wander over to the booths and tables, but he slumps down on one of the barstools instead, and stares at the menu behind her with small, bleary eyes. “You want anything to drink? And maybe a recommendation on our food?”, she asks softly, quietly, and he nods.

 

“Hm, a burger with bacon and way too much cheese, and some fries and mayo? We also make pancakes and waffles?”, she offers, and he _groans_. “That sounds perfect right now. The burger part, I mean.” She grins, gives his order to Eleyna, who’s hiding in the back and writing on an essay, and watches him out of the corner of her eye as she pours soda and coke into a pint glass. He looks as if he’d fall asleep on the counter every minute now, and her heart swells at teeny tiny bit. Just a bit.

 

“So, had a rough night?” He mumbles something, shakes his head and rubs the sleep out of his eyes. “Um, yeah, kinda. Had a little-“, he chuckles, puts a hand over his mouth as if to stop himself from talking, but continues, “ _dispute_ with some guy. Different opinions”, he shrugs, winces, looks at her raised brows bashfully. “A little _dispute_. Sure”, she says, sarcasm dripping from her words, and he shrugs again, more careful this time.

 

“Well, he thought it was okay to harass girls, and I didn’t agree with him, and somehow…” “Somehow this happened”, she finishes for him, gesturing towards his face and the cut and the bruises. “Um, yeah”, he says, quietly, and she can see the fear in his eyes – that she’ll ask questions, or find out who, or _what_ he is. But she just hums, stretches her long limbs, pulls a vial out of her bag, and pushes it over the counter towards him.

 

“Velaryon N° 5?” His brows knit together in confusion, and she explains quickly. “I reuse old perfume bottles, because, you know, climate change and all that. It’s actually a remedy for, um, long nights full of, work and such. I always use it after pulling an all-nighter, you know? Old family recipe, not vegan, but 100% bio, and homemade. You can keep it, if you like”, she rambles on, and the smile he gifts her is the sweetest she’s ever seen, and his soft, quiet “Thanks” makes her stomach flutter.

 

He digs into his burger like a famished animal, practically inhales his fries and a few chicken wings, more food than anyone’s eaten before, but he fought tonight, so he needs more than usually, she muses, and fills his glass again. He leaves with a full stomach, sticky fingers and a vial filled with something that tastes of thick, dark honey and pine trees and rain dripping of ripe berries. When he wakes sometime after midday, he feels a lot better than he usually does after a full moon, despite his cuts and bruises.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On Tumblr  
> https://kissed-by-circe.tumblr.com/post/182529880543/theres-something-in-the-clear-icy-air


	2. ii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the sweet comments and kudos 💕😊

🌕    July    🌕

 

Scrunching her nose once, twice, _trice_ , her sister flops down on the barstool and squints at her suspiciously. “It smells like-“ “Yes. Left about 20 minutes ago.” “Oh”, and she sniffles again. “Not someone I know. Did they give you trouble?”, she asks, nonchalantly, like a woman that pretends not to care to get information out of someone, like an adventurer á la Indiana Jones in a seedy bar in some movie, but Sansa still hears the concern in her words, and she shakes her head ‘no’. “Nope, just ate a month’s worth of potatoes and gave me a generous tip.” “Good. There was a- a fight in the woods beyond the 7th. Quite… bloody.”

 

Arya hangs her head, and Sansa can feel her fingers trembling. Her sister doesn’t use words like ‘quite’ and ‘a bit’ and ‘extremely’ like other people do, and she knows what she means. A bloodbath, more likely, a fight for life and death, than just a little tumble with some friends and acquaintances from the neighbourhood, and she has to supress a shiver when she walks over to the group hurdled together in their usual booth, under the poster of an old movie. **_Wolf In The Night_** , it reads, and she looks into the beast’s golden eyes for a moment, before she pulls out her notepad and takes their order.

 

It’s only after the big rush – dozens of customers, all of them tiredly demanding burgers and pancakes and waffles, and asking politely if she has something against the soreness as well, but quieter than usual, their solemn faces making fear wash through her – and Arya’s gang leaving with hugs and _thank yous_ and yawns bigger than the hands that are trying to hide them, that she’s left alone with her sister, and can ask her more. “So…”, she says when she’s picking up used napkins and wipes down the first of 14 tables, and she doesn’t even have to ask. Her sister understands her well enough.

 

“You heard about that herd of centaurs south of the waterfall?”, she whispers, and Sansa nods and grabs the wet rag tighter, until her fingers ache, concentrating on a persistent spot on table 13. _Cheese_ , she thinks, _someone dropped melted cheese on it_. “You warned me of them, remember?” Arya looks concerned, but continues. _The horror you know is better than the unknown_ , they both know that. “Well, they didn’t bother us, _of course_ , but some dude gave them trouble. Someone I don’t know.”

 

Her brow furrows, and Sansa understands how much this troubles her sister. Someone _new_ , someone they don’t know, could mean danger. “And this new guy, he’s a…”, and when Arya nods, she grips the edge of the table in front of her to steady herself. “That new customer – he looked bad. Really bad, like fresh from a fight, with cuts and bloodied clothes. Even told me he had a _small dispute_ , or so he called it, with someone.” Arya hugs her, tight enough to leave bruises and tenderly enough to not break some of her bones, and they only leave at dawn, with their arms linked and Eleyna next to them.

 

☀️

 

At least it’s a Saturday. Showing up at the office covered in bruises and cuts and seemingly hangover, because that’s what he looks like, he knows, only two weeks after starting his new job at Ryswell&Co, wouldn’t be good for his image, and he really, _really_ wants this job, because it means living _here_ , close to his family, if you’d call it that, at long last, after being on his own for so long, moving from place to place, never knowing where he belonged. Given, his father’s family isn’t really what he expected them to be, but _still_ , they’re his family, and the pack has to hold together, even if they’re not a real pack.

 

He empties the whole vial over the course of the weekend, relishing the warm feeling in the pit of his stomach and the way the syrup-like liquid coats his throat, which is sore from howling, and when he’s finished it, he scrubs it clean as best as he can, and puts it on the drawers near the door of his apartment. He’ll return it, he tells himself, to that beautiful girl with the bright smile and the soft eyes, if he ever goes to that diner again. _If_. He’s not sure jet, because he probably frightened her to death, even if she didn’t show it. Kind, and brave, and beautiful, not the kind of girl that’d look at him twice unless she wanted to describe him to the police. Not the kind of girl he should think about.

 

And so, he keeps himself busy to stop thinking about her, burying himself in work and spending time with his relatives, befriending some neighbours and co-workers, and trying to find a hobby football team that’s still searching for new members. He impresses his boss, Mrs Dustin, so much that she remembers his name, becomes the new forward for the _Wild Wolves_ , and makes weekend plans with Sam, who lives in the apartment right under his, and Pod from work. He even allows “Auntie” Dany to braid his hair, all to keep his mind occupied.

 

It’s only when the bright red **X** on his calendar moves closer and closer, three and a half weeks after that bloody night when he first met her, that he allows himself to think of that little diner, that bright, warm spot in a city of darkness. He’s in the middle of meal prep, just like so many other nights before, elbow deep in a bowl of minced meat, when the doorbell rings. It’s Sam from 3b, chubby and rosy-faced and wide-eyed from climbing up four flights of stairs. “Hey”, is all he huffs, and Jon pulls him into the apartment and over to the kitchen, before he collapses, to pour him a glass of water.

 

“So… you went jogging?”, he asks, once his ~~friend~~ neighbour sits at the wooden table and has gulped down some juice. He’s still rather flushed, but he stopped wheezing, at least, and he’s able to snort and say “ _As if_. No, there was a _huge_ spider lurking around the foyer, so I had to sprint up the stairs. You know, spiders are faster than me”, and then he’s looking into the pantry – he forgot to close the door, Jon realises with a silent curse – where a whole deer carcass hangs from an iron rod he built into it when he moved in. “So… you went hunting?”, Sam throws back, his brows raised, and nods towards the pantry.

 

“Um, no… bought it for, um, a family dinner. My aunt invited me to her house in the woods. Tomorrow. I’m spending the whole night there, you know, to get to know her better. I actually wanted to talk to you about it, because I can’t take Ghost, so he’ll be alone the whole time…” “Why doesn’t she come to yours, if you can’t take the dog to hers?” “Um, she’s allergic to dogs?” “ _You_ ”, Sam points at him, “are the worst liar I’ve ever seen. Just tell me that you’re a werewolf, I’m okay with that, okay?” “Wait, what? _How_?”

 

“Dude, you came home in the early morning after a full moon _with blood on your clothes_ , you communicate with your dog, who’s part wolf, _too_ , then you drag a whole _fucking deer carcass_ through the whole building, and tell me that you have plans that involve _going to your family’s cabin in the woods for a whole night_ during the fucking full moon. I’m sure you have many great talents, mate, but hiding the fact that you turn into a dog every four weeks isn’t one of them.”

 

Feeling fear pour through his veins like ice water, Jon stands up, ready to bolt. Sam has always seemed nice enough, but never like he could keep a secret, more like a guy that’d spill the truth before he’s even had time to think about it if threatened, and maybe there’s already an angry mob forming down there on the street, right under the window of his kitchen. Sensing his fear, Sam holds his hands up in a calming gesture. “Oh my gods, don’t worry pal. I won’t rat you out if you don’t rat me out. We children of the night gotta keep together, ya know?”, he mumbles, which only causes Jon to crease his brows in even more confusion.

 

“You don’t know anything, do you?”, Sam shakes his head, and, gesturing and speaking slowly, as if Jon is too dumb to understand even the easiest things, explains: “I – am – a – wizard. _Wizard_. Big, pointy hat – black robes – _magic_.” Jon punches his arm, grumbling, “I’m not dumb”, and pouts when Sam starts laughing. “I literally practice necromancy _right under your flat_ , and you still think I’m a normal human? Fuck, Snow, are you blind _and_ deaf?”


	3. iii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon finds some friends 😊🐺

🌕

 

The night is going well, even better than expected. He was prepared, of course, just as he always is – he let Sam drive him out of the city, then hiked all the way to a clearing that’s far enough from it for his liking, and dropped the carcass, still fresh enough for the wolf in him, on a spot that’s not too muddy. His duffle bag, filled with half a dozen ham sandwiches in sealed containers, his phone, and, after his watch tells him that he has less than five minutes left, his clothes, is safely hidden under a few rocks. He’ll just have to find back here once it’s over.

 

 _This will be a quiet night_ , he tells himself, unlike the last one he spent outside. Just a normal night, feasting on a deer that’s been dead in a freezer for two days, running around the woods and chasing squirrels, then coming back to this little clearing to change into normal clothes and hike back home. He didn’t expect to meet a pack of other wolves out there. It’s a smaller pack, half a dozen beasts in coats of black and the darkest shades of brown and grey, mostly younger wolves, that bare their teeth to them. He’s on their territory, he’s crossed some unmarked border, but they do not attack him, at least not yet. But someone, or _something_ , follows him on his way back to his things.

 

When the transformation’s over, and the pain ebbed away, at least enough for him to see his surroundings again, he notices a young, dark haired woman in nothing but a faded band-shirt that’s way too big for her hanging on her slender frame, and he scrambles up from where he was laying in the dirt, holding his hands out in surrender. “Ok, listen, it didn’t know there was a pack around here, or that that’s your territory”, he explains quickly.

 

Even if this girl isn’t a werewolf, but something else, he has to make sure that there’s no reason for her to wish him ill. He’s still new to this forest, doesn’t have a pack or a gang or a squad, and there are so many creatures that could come out here at night, but she _is_ wearing only a t-shirt that reaches down to the middle of her thighs, which probably means that she transforms into something that doesn’t wear pants or shoes, like a were creature or a siren or a fucking centaur, and that could be a problem for him, so he rambles on. “I don’t really know what you are, but I’m not looking for trouble, okay?”

 

“ _Sure_ , keep telling yourself that”, the girl snarls, sarcasm dripping of her words as she’s pacing around him, but then she sighs and waves her hands. “Do you have something to put on? It’s weird talking to a naked stranger, you know? I not gonna bite you, ‘kay? Just wanna talk.” He scrambles for his duffle bag, silently thanks the gods when he finds it, and quickly pulls on a pair of boxers and jeans, before he turns around with his shirt still in his hands, unsure if he should risk it and put it over his head.

 

“So, you don’t want trouble, but attack the centaurs during your first night out here? How stupid are ya?”, she asks, and pinches the bridge of her nose when he wants to know how she knew it was him. “Seriously, dude? You’re _white_. And believe it or not, but there’s not been a single white wolf running ‘round here since _forever_.” “Yeah, don’t know where the white fur came from”, he shrugs, “are you a part of the pack I saw earlier?” “Yeah. My brothers and friends should be here in a minute. Which leaves us with little time for _you_ to tell _me_ what happened last moon. Why the fuck did you attack those centaurs?”

 

He scrubs at his chin – the stumble’s getting longer, he’ll have to shave soon enough – and scratches his neck, before he answers. “Their leader, his name’s Drogo or something like that, do you know him?”, he says at last, and she shudders. “Yes.” “Well, he was harassing a girl I know, a relative of mine – she’s not a were creature, but something different – so I made sure he doesn’t go near her again”, he explains, and she nods.

 

“Okay. Um, I’m not going to come here again, I don’t wanna trespass your lands again. Do you- is there anywhere I could go on wolf nights? Somewhere where no dangerous creatures run around?”, he asks, and she tilts her head and narrows her eyes at him. “You don’t have a pack”, she whispers, not a question but a statement, and sighs. “You know what? I’m going to introduce you to the others. Maybe you can join us”, she shrugs, her expression too casual for someone deep in the woods, late on a wolf night. She starts walking down a deer pass, and he yanks his shirt over his head, grabs his duffle bag and runs after her.

 

“We’re going to vote whether we keep you or not.” She turns around with a wicked grin on her pale lips, “we’re democrats, but the boys don’t know that, so it’s between Stark and me. 50/50 chance for you.”

 

🌕

 

The guy that introduced himself as “CC, _just_ CC, do you understand?” is casually smoking a few meters away, not really interested in him, but the others are discussing the issue of him joining or not joining the pack quite passionately. Stark just looked at him and decided to like him, but Harry, the gang’s alpha, doesn’t want him on his lands because of the fight, and his younger brothers, Torr and Edd, are backing him up, until the girl that found him – Alys, they’d called her, with love clearly swinging in their gruff voices – tells them that he wanted to protect a girl from the centaurs.

 

By the end of the night, he has six new friends, is the member of a pack – and follows them blindly through the woods. He didn’t even think to ask where they’re heading because he’s too tired to do anything but stumble after them when Alys declared that they’re getting some junk food now, waving the sandwich he offered her aside with a grin. “I know something better, mate”, was all she’d said, before the whole pack started to wander in one direction, fluidly moving alongside each other like a swarm of starlings.

 

Where they get the energy to do that from is a mystery to him, but he finds out about it soon enough, when CC, who’s been sucking on one cheap cigarette after the other, falls into pace next to him, and huffs out some smoke, pale in the low light, now that the moon’s hiding behind the ragged mountains north of the woods. “How long?”, is all he asks, his voice so much softer and higher than Alys’, even though he tries to hide it, and Jon mumbles “Eight years now.” CC nods, silently, brushes some of his light brown hair out of his pale face, and asks, in a casual, disinterested way, “Do you use witchcraft?”.

 

Jon stumbles in surprise, his sturdy boots slipping on the wet roots and stones that twist through the mud of the path they’re following, but he catches himself before he falls face first into the dirt. “Witchcraft? Why would I?”, he shoots back, still rather puzzled. What would he use witchcraft for? But CC explains, as if it is normal to him. “You know, all the things that help you on wolf nights, like potions, lotions, oils, …” “Bath bombs!”, Edd throws in, startling Jon, but CC seems to be used to it, and Alys shouts “Oh. My. _Gods_. Eddie, those bath bombs aren’t magical or heal your body just because a witch gave them to you” with an exasperated expression on the sharp edges of her face.

 

“But they smell nice, like flowers, and the foam’s a real pretty colour, too!”, he yells back, and the whole pack roars with laughter. Jon has no idea how they can laugh like that after two, _two_ fucking transformations and a night full of hunting and running and jumping around. He feels as weak as he always does, and wants nothing more than to crawl into his bed and allow his body to rest and heal there, but Alys, who’s thrown a plaid-shirt over the huge band t-shirt she’s wearing, and put on a pair of skinny jeans and converse as well, places a bony hand on his arm to catch his attention while the guys and Stark are jesting around them.

 

“So you’ve never used a potion, or a rune, or a spell to make the transformation easier? Haven’t you ever met a wizard, or a sorceress that could do that?”, she whispers, genuine concern in her rough, raspy voice, and he shakes his head. “Well, you will now. We know a witch that’s pretty good – what am I saying, she’s the best that’s ever lived here, and she makes everything you could dream of, lotions for your skin and potions that’ll help you. Just wait and see. Also, she makes some pretty good coffee, and I really need a cup or maybe three right now.” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On Tumblr: https://kissed-by-circe.tumblr.com/post/183022734868/he-didnt-expect-to-meet-a-pack-of-other-wolves


	4. iv

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon and Sansa meet again + some girls talk 🌼

🌕 

 

A siren squad hogs the two booths on the left side of the door, their eyes shining brightly after a night of hunting and flying, and their smiles dazzle Sansa for a moment, before she flees behind the counter. They are her friends, the ones she goes to the cinema and to clubs with on a regular basis, but wolf nights are different. The blood under their sharp fingernails and the seal brown feathers that look like Myranda wove them into her dark curls remind her of that, and of the darker nights that she wants to forget so very badly. But the sun is already rising behind the mountains, its pale golden fingers caressing the dusty glass of the wide windows, and the night will end soon enough. Her phone chirps above her head, once, twice, thrice, where it’s laying in her purse next to Lady on the hanging shelf, and she knows what the texts will read before she even unlocks it. 

 

Cerwyn, Cley 🐵   


**The Pack Returns** 🐺 4.19 

 

Karstark, Torrhen 🌺   


**were on our way to the diner now 💕** 4.20

 **be there in about 15 to 20. met another wolf in the woods, alys made him join us for breakfast hope thats okay for u? 😟** 4.20 **  
**

**if you dont want him in the diner ill find an excuse to not bring him along, okay? be safe princess 😘** 4.22

 

Arya 🐺 

**on oue way now** 4.22

 **20min** 4.23 

 

Of course it’s Torr that warns her first, probably because Edd told him so – they’re both so very quiet, Torr even more so than Edd, always in the shadows behind cool, bossy Harry and loud and boisterous Alys, but they’re also thoughtful, and observant, and she loves the four of them with all her heart. They will keep her safe, she knows, and besides, this isn’t the first time she’s dealt with a werewolf in her diner, so she writes back that they can bring that new person, and that pancakes and waffles and chocolate syrup will be ready. She’s prepared herself mentally, for this new person, who might become a member of the pack of her little sister and her friends, but she’s not really ready for the sight of _him_ , of that bashful expression and the shyness in his movements. He looks different that he did last time – the same grey shimmer of exhaustion lies over his tired features, maybe a bit fainter, but there’s no blood, no bruises and cuts, and his clothes aren’t torn and muddied, but clean. 

 

He looks like the college students that come here during their all-nighters, she thinks, because she makes milkshakes that are magical, even if they do not know that, and finds that she likes it. They smile at each other, that awkward, close-mouthed, thin-lipped smile you give people you don’t really know when they’re too far away to say ‘hello’, and turns around when Cley shoves him down on a chair, to tell Eleyna that the gang’s here. She’s busy making drinks and milkshakes, organising dishes and counting pancakes to avoid _another_ brutal hunt through half the neighbourhood like the last time Alys snatched one of one of her brother’s plates and bolted out the door with four hungry wolves at her heels, and she almost doesn’t notice him. He’s moving quietly, his steps softer than the last time, but still loud enough for her to hear, and the fuzzy hairs on the back of her neck rise when she feels his gaze linger on her profile. “Um”, he clears his throat, clearly wanting her to look up and notice him, and when she does, her lips stretched into a broad, bright smile that shows of her teeth, he blushes and rubs the back of his neck, curling inward in that way only shy people do.

 

It’s as if he forgets what he wants to say, and for a moment, he’s struggling to form words – not that she notices, really, she’s quite busy admiring the slight stumble on his chiselled jaw and the softness of his lips, to be honest – but then he manages to mumble “Thanks for that remedy thing. It really worked.” She just hums in response, her lips still curled upwards, and nods towards the gang sitting on their table, fighting over some band or the other, and smiles at him again. “So you’re…?” “Um, yes. I hope I didn’t frighten you last time”, he says, still looking at his shoes more than at her face, and she shakes her head when he gazes upwards for a moment, and shrugs. “Already suspected that. You’re not the first, you won’t be the last. People like us like coming here for some reason”, she supplies him, and offers him her hand. “I’m Sansa, by the way.” “Jon. Snow. Nice to meet you.” 

 

🌕 

 

“So…”, Arya drawls out from her place on the counter, feet dangling and one hand braced on the edges, and looks at her expectantly with her brows raised and her other hand rubbing her stomach, which is now filled with coke and waffles and cream. Sansa mirrors her sister’s expression, and crosses her arms. “What?” “What? What’d you think of him?” “Who?”, she asks back, knowing fully well just _who_ Arya’s talking about, but she saw the way he looked at her, more often than he looked at his food, which is rare for a werewolf under the full moon. She’s pretty, she knows that, and he watched her as if he thought so, too. And maybe she starred at him a little bit, just a few stolen glances, not enough to make most people suspicious, but Torr’s too observant, and the kind of guy that’s always worried about the girls in his life, so maybe he noticed and told her sister.

 

It’s nothing, _less_ than nothing, they didn’t even talk apart from some small talk and him giving the bottle back without even touching her bare skin, but that could be enough for the Karstarks to do something rash and reckless, so it’s safer for everyone if she just pretends that she didn’t notice him starring at her. Arya rolls her eyes hard enough to make her worry about them, and sighs. “ _Jon_. The guy that’s been sitting between Edd and Harry for almost an hour now. Who else would I be asking about?”, and Sansa shrugs, as if she doesn’t care. “So, like, do you trust him? With all your special senses and that whole stuff? ‘cause Alys and Edd and Harry want him to join us, and I’d like that, too, but, you know – not if your spider sense or whatever it’s called says that he’s dangerous”, she whispers, bent forward and looking down at her boots, at steel hidden under leather, as if she were ready to kick someone in the throat. Sansa shakes her head, slowly, carefully, watching his tired face and how he tries to concentrate on a story Edd’s telling him. “No. No, he’s not a threat.” 

 

🌕 

 

It’s weird to know just how many of the people around him are children of the night, too. Maybe he’s as oblivious as Sam said, maybe it’s because of his upbringing, the nomadic life his mother lived before her death, without a pack or a family and almost no contact to others like them, or maybe he’s just not used to recognising others, to seeing a group of girls with feathers in their hair and thinking ‘siren’ and connecting the faint, lightly stale scent that lingers before the pharmacy down the road with the vampire living above it. And then the witch… she’s just what he expected her to be, and nothing like he’s imagined when Alys told him about her. She looked more like one this night, with the sequined stars sewn onto her long wrap dress, even if he never thought that a witch would wear peach-coloured velvet, and the inky runes and symbols curling around her wrists and forearms, and the beautiful long auburn hair running down her back like the waves of a fiery stream.

 

And it makes _sense_ , in some way, that she’s a witch. The way she looked at his blood-soaked clothes, and the remedy she gave him that night, that cured his post-transformation hangover better than anything else would have told him her secret, if he hadn’t been so blind. And now he knows it. He wishes he wouldn’t. Because she’s sweet, and kind, and, caring. Because relationships between different creatures usually don’t work out. He knows because of his parents’ relationship, or the lack thereof. He’s heard about his grandparents’ disastrous marriage. He’s seen it with his aunt and her boyfriend, and now he’s bearing the scars of her love. Seven hells, he’s even afraid of dating an earthling, or even _another_ werewolf and having children, because there’s always the chance of them not being like him, but like his father. And yet he cannot wait to see her again. _Her_. Sansa. He doesn’t even allow himself to think of her name. It tastes like pomegranates on his tongue. 


	5. v

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa plays match-maker for her friends. Jon takes his shirt off.

☀️

 

They’ve only met twice, and she’s only ever seen him after dark, his handsomely rugged face basked in the artificial, yellowish lights of the diner, and one of those two times his face was beaten up and bloodied and dirty and slightly swollen, so when she sees him for the first time in the bright, hot light of a late July afternoon, the dark length of his eyelashes against that tan skin, and stark contrast between the softness of his lips and the sharpness of his jaw and cheekbones even more highlighted, it takes her breath away. Almost. She’s still a witch after all, and she never lets her façade of perfectly collected calmness crack, not when confronted with a heavily bleeding wound, a thousand-eye crawling through her backyard, or a devilishly handsome man.

 

Okay, maybe her mind goes blank when one corner of that sinful mouth curls upwards into a half smile, and maybe she gapes and stares and flushes crimson when he takes of his shirt and reveals a body made for sin – lean and slightly tanned, with muscles rippling under scars that tell of the most brutal battles one can fight – and it takes her a few minutes to regain her wits and realise that he’s on the team that plays shirtless, along with Harry and Edd and Gendry and Jory, who’s stripped down to shorts and a sports bra. “You really gotta give that poor guy some lotion for his back”, Alys startles her with her sudden comment, and Sansa almost falls of the park bench’s back she’s perched on. Arya joins in on their conversation, elbowing Alys in the side and saying “Yes, _Mummy Karstark_ , take care of that new puppy”, before Alys tackles her.

 

They’re rolling around in the dry grass behind the bench, and Sansa sighs. They’re both rather caring, and Alys is a good leader of their pack, which makes their friendship so very easy and so horribly complicated at the same time, but sometimes her ‘cousin’ and her sister are just too childish for her liking. Sometimes she prefers Wylla, who’s rummaging around in her picknick basket for some pastry or the other, and who’s going to spend the whole training session they’re watching, like every Sunday since they’ve turned 15 and 16, with a pair of huge sunglasses on her snub nose, and her light green eyes glued to the rather muscular, and now very naked, chest of Harry. She won’t make fun of her, or hint at her little crush in not so subtle ways when Jon’s present, or roll her eyes and refuse to listen to anything that has to do with relationships.

 

No, Wylla’s just going to mumble something among the lines of ‘same, gurl, _sa-hame’_ , hand her a cinnamon roll and listen patiently to her rambling about the things she could do or say. She just has to wait until Alys and Arya are busy doing something else, because her sister and her friend can’t know about that _now_ , when it’s just a teeny tiny crush on a guy with amazing abs and a sweet smile and a softness in his dark eyes that makes her knees go weak. No, she won’t tell them unless there’s more to say than ‘I think I might like him’. It’d be too much trouble, for both of them, with the jokes and the shenanigans the both of them would have to endure, not to mention the way the pack – and some others, too – try to protect her, which could lead to yet another manhunt. She’s not risking that, especially since he’s a part of Arya’s gang.

 

Just looking at him makes her stomach do somersaults, just because of how _happy_ he looks. The tired, dirtied, grey man she met four weeks ago, that could barely stand on his own and looked like he’d been run over had her sympathy, and the picture of the handsomely rugged guy in the lumberjack clothes that shyly scratched the stumble on his cheeks when he thanked her for the potion she gave him followed her into the darkness of her bedroom and into her dreams, but this Jon, who’s smiling brightly at his new team- and packmates when Jory cracks jet _another_ joke about dogs not being allowed on the field and the pack starts singing _‘Who let the dogs out’_ badly enough to make even Wylla look pained, is not only sexy but also cute in a way that makes her think stupid things.

 

Breakfast in bed, the sun falling through the lace curtains of her room and painting patterns on his skin – resting her head on his shoulder in a dark cinema, with his warm, strong, callused hand on her thigh – dancing in her kitchen, some old song on the radio and flour on his cheeks and strawberries on their tongues – she digs her nails into her thigh, careful not to draw blood, but deep enough to leave marks, and concentrates on Wylla’s sighs again, until she has enough. It’s been like this for more than half a dozen years already, and now it will come to an end. “If you don’t talk to Harry soon, he’ll ask Myranda Royce if she’d like to go the movies with him”, she threatens, her voice low and soft, and her friend visibly pales. “You can’t be sure about that”, she whispers, and Sansa grins like a cat when she hears the quiet desperation in that sentence. “Trust me, honey, he will, and she’ll say ‘yes’, we both know that she will. Are you really going to lose him like that? To _Myranda Royce_?”

 

It’s kind of cruel to torture poor Wylla like that, she knows, but she won’t ever be brave enough to go talk to Harry on her own, and Harry is the kind of idiot that doesn’t realise that the girl he’s had a huge crush on for years now likes him, too, so if she does nothing at all, they’ll never admit their feelings to each other and get their ‘happily ever after’, and now Wylla looks like she’s horrified enough to finally _do something_. “To that fucking siren? That feathery bitch?”, she grinds out and stands abruptly. “Over my dead body!”, she hisses, and walks through the whole football field, to grab the face of a rather confused looking Harry and pull it down for a long, heated kiss, that has the others whistle and cheer.

 

Behind her, Arya gags, Alys mutters something about wanting to go blind, but Harry’s bright smile could illuminate the whole town. “How’d you do that?”, Arya asks, and Sansa shrugs. “Told her that some siren was interested in him, too. You know how mermaids can get when you mention their bird-like sisters” “That’s brilliant. And disgusting”, her sister mutters when Harry touches Wylla’s face as if she were made of glass, and whispers something to her with a gentleness in his eyes that tells everyone just how he feels. There’s more gaging noises behind her when they kiss again, and Sansa sighs. It’s just so much easier to talk to Wylla about boys.

 

☀️

 

He can feel her gaze linger on him like a flaming hot caress, burning into him like the sun, and he stumbles more often than not during their little training session, hoping that she doesn’t see, or mind, the scars that cover his back and arms and legs like a silvery netting. He doesn’t think he’s ever been this self-conscious about his body before, because no one ever saw him like this in the bright light of the day, and because she probably knows where those scars come from. None of the others is as scarred as he is, he’s noticed, and he suspects that that’s because of _her_. Potions and lotions and bath bombs, Edd’s told him twice, can really help, especially if they’re as good as the stuff she makes (and sells on the side, according to CC). During the last wolf night, she gave him another bottle, but didn’t take the banknote he tried to shove into her hands, pushing back the crumpled bill, its burned orange colour so dark against the light peach velvet of her sleeves, and shook her head with a smile.

 

‘You’re a member of the pack now’, she’d said and shrugged, before walking back to the counter to put away the bills and coins the others had given her for food and drinks. “She won’t just take your money like that”, Arya tells him quietly when they hang back while the others go on their way, Harry and Wylla first, lost in each other’s eyes, and the rest of the team and onlookers leaving not long after. “She’s like a mother hen, you know? Always takin care of us, in a proper way, not like Alys – she’s our leader, ‘course, and she’s making sure there’s no trouble and that no one’s dying, but Sansa – she’s the maternal kind, makes sure you eat enough and wear something warm in the winter. She’s giving us those potions because she wants to. And you can repay her, sure thing, but not with money. Candy would be better. Preferably liquorice”, she explains, her hands flying through the air and her fingers dancing before his face, to underline her words. “So, liquorice? Are you sure?”, he frowns at where the pretty redhead’s standing, humming to herself as she stares at her smartphone, and Arya nods enthusiastically. “Yeah, 100% sure.”

 


	6. vi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They *finally* talk to each other 🙌

🌓    August    🌓

 

It’s more than three weeks before they speak to each other properly. They see each other quite often, since the pack drags him with them wherever they’re going, and they cross paths with her more often than not, but they’re still moving in different circles, it seems. They go to the movies with the whole gang, and she comes to their football training sessions in the park, but she’s busy at home or at work or at college when the wolves play paint ball, go hiking, or work out at the gym together, and she’s at the cinema and goes dancing and spends the night at her friends’ houses for sleepovers and movie marathons when they’re hanging out at the Karstark’s house, or when he goes out with his colleagues or spends some time with Sam. Even when they’re in the same room at the same time, they don’t talk to each other, because there’s always someone asking her a question, or telling him a story, or, which is happening way too often for his liking, _tackling him_ _for no reason at all_.

 

But he still can’t help but notice the way she moves, as gracefully as if she were dancing under water, how she smiles at Edd and Torr and Arya, how soft her voice sounds when she’s explaining something.

 

Arya only tells him that they’re sisters after a few days, and tells him that his loyalty shouldn’t only belong to the pack, but to the whole Stark family, and the Cerwyns and Karstarks and even the Mormonts as well. “Mama’s a witch, Papa was a werewolf. Our brothers are wizards, too”, she shrugs and clears her throat, as if it’s not really important, but he hears the way her voice breaks when she speaks about her parents. He doesn’t pry, and he doesn’t have to, because Edd fills him in once she leaves the room, his honest, gentle voice quiet and deep. “Manticores down in King’s Landing, and then dark wizards in the Riverlands. They got Ned first, and Cat and their boy not long after. They moved here after that, to live with their uncle. He’s nice, you’ll see. You’ll probably meet him soon enough.” “Yeah, when he ends up in Jonelle’s bed”, Harry shouts, and CC jumps up to punch him in the face. Alys throws herself between the two to try and stop them from hurting each other. People are screaming in fear.

 

They don’t talk about their families again after that, but he still wants to get to know Sansa better, and so he ends up at the diner, again, looking for food and company. 

 

🌓 

 

She looks surprised when he pushes through the door, but then her face breaks into a wide smile that shows too many of her teeth, and he finds himself smiling back at her, the lopsided grin of a man that frowns too much to do anything else with his face. “Hey, how are you? What can I get you?”, she asks, her voice too high and too sweet, a service voice, he thinks, and it’s only when he’s sitting at the counter with a cup of strong coffee while she loads pancakes onto a plate that she starts talking normally again. They make some small talk, or more like – she talks and he listens to her and smiles into his coffee. She’s funny, he finds out, and he quite likes her dark, sarcastic kind of humour and the way she tells him the latest gossip, as if he were one of her girlfriends, and he finds himself asking questions like a teenage girl in a romcom before long.

 

“No way! After she found him with _her brother_? What was she thinking?” and “Really? With _that guy_?” and “Tell me _everything_ ”, and she’s giggling, and he doesn’t know much, but he knows that he loves her laugh and that he wants to make her laugh more often, too. They’re interrupted by a plump, squealing girl in a tight white bodycon dress asking Sansa for the bill, and then, with a side glance to him, for ‘some of the good stuff’, and he unwillingly watches an exchange of banknotes, blue like forget-me-nots, _blue like her eyes_ , and a plastic bottle that looks like it used to contain shampoo, with a sticker on it that’s covered in lilac sharpie doodles and runes and numbers and words he can’t make out from the corner of his eye.

 

He doesn’t want to look, he _really_ doesn’t, but something about that girl makes him uneasy – maybe it’s the smirk on her lipstick-red mouth, the deep crimson colour and the sharpness of her nails, or the way she throws her long, golden hair over her shoulder, he’s not sure of it – and he’s feeling even more protective than he usually does, because Sansa belongs to his pack. His fists tighten when the two girls hug like old friends, and when the blonde leaves the diner, there are little marks on his palms, but Sansa just hums and counts the bills in her hand, before tugging them into the pocket of her apron. When she notices his gaze lingering on her, she mistakes the worry on his face for curiosity, and leans over the counter to explain.

 

“She needed some special shampoo that makes her hair soft and her feathers smooth”, she whispers, and he doesn’t really hear her, because her warm breath is ghosting over the skin of his neck and she’s close enough for him to smell the scents of her skin and clothes and hair, peaches and vanilla and lavender and something that’s just _her_ , while she goes on. “Potions that allay your hunger for blood, or, in your case, greasy food, and brews to ease the pain of a transformation. Shampoos and conditioners that don’t make feathers bristle, lotions to soothe your skin when it’s been stretched too much, and creams for when fur and mother-of-pearl turn back into soft flesh. My… my mother taught me how to make those things, and I like making them, and it’s easy to make some money by selling them”, she shrugs, too carelessly to fool him, but he doesn’t ask, and he probably never will. It’s not his place to do it.

 

So he changes the topic, and thanks her for the tonic she gave him, again, while rummaging through his bag for the neatly – or as neatly as he managed to – wrapped little packet he put in there just before he left his apartment. “Oh.” Nothing more than just that little word, if you’d even call it a word, and a strained smile, but it’s enough to tell him that she doesn’t like liquorice quite like her sister said she did, and he wants to kick himself for trusting Arya on something like that. Every member of his pack is trustworthy, of course, but they’re also into playing pranks on everyone, all of the fucking time, and as the newbie he’s at the centre of the worst of it. “It’s the best this side of the neck, the shop assistant told me”, he stammers, trying hopelessly to save what’s left to save, and when she looks down at the little pack in her hands, she smiles, warm and genuine. “Thanks. That’s very sweet of you”, she tells him, the corners of her mouth curled upwards and her eyes squinting up at him, and he can’t help but give her a lopsided half smile of his own.

 

It’s only when he steps out onto the street, into the cold, clear night air, that he realises that that girl that made him feel so uneasy, reminded him of his aunt. 

 

🌗 

 

He comes to the diner more often after that. The first three times, he’s greeted by a wide smile painted pale pink, and an awkward hug over the counter, but when he enters the small building for the fourth time in those two weeks between the waning and the waxing of the moon, he is meet with the uninterested, bland gaze of a middle-aged man with balding hair, who stops wiping down the counter when he sees him enter. “What can I do for you, boy?”, he asks, and Jon orders coffee and some fries before he can even think about it, a knee-jerk reaction to the gruff, but polite customer-service voice of the older man. “So… Sansa’s not working tonight?”, he asks back when the waiter – his name tag reads Davos S. – puts the cup and plate in front of him, and the way Davos’ bushy eyebrows rise tells him that he’s not the first to ask that question. “No, her shifts change quite often”, he bites out, and starts organising the ketchup bottles behind the counter, clearly ending the conversation. “Um, do you think she’ll be working tomorrow night? Or morning?”, he hears himself asking, and cringes inwardly.

 

He could ask Arya or one of the gang – he’s a part of the wolf group chat, which consists mostly of doggo memes, discussions about food and Cley complaining about the noise and telling Arya to do something about it with the usual jokes that follow that horrible, _horrible_ topic – but then she’d know that he’s coming to the diner to talk to her sister, and she’ll either think him a creep _or_ tell the pack and make fun of him, which he doesn’t want to happen, and he can’t ask Sansa directly, because he just doesn’t do that. He doesn’t ask people for their numbers, he waits for them to do it. Davos’ eyebrows shoot up, and his face turns grim. “Okay, listen here, kid”, he almost growls, his hands on the counter as if he’s ready to jump over it, “she’s a pretty, sweet girl, and if you’re just a regular that likes chatting with her, then that’s none of my business, but I’m not going to tell you her work hours or anything else, you understand that? I’ve dealt with enough creeps like you to know that some of you are not what you pretend to be, okay?” Jon just nods, and stares into his cup, and somehow, he’s glad that her colleague’s so protective of her. 


	7. vii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon sees something he wasn't supposed to see 🙈

🌑 September 🌑

 

She silently curses herself when she turns around and sees his eyes snap up, darker, deeper, and far more dangerous than she’s ever seen them. He wasn’t supposed to see her like this, not when she’s neither ready nor prepared, not when their friendship’s still so very fresh and delicate, and she grabs her robe and wraps it around her, while his fists tighten and the knuckles of his hands turn a ghostly white. The fringed hem of the robe brushes over her naked thighs, over smooth skin and pale scars, and she can feel some of the tension leaving her body, now that the silvery pink marks on her upper legs are covered and hidden from his view. “I’m sorry, I didn’t wanna…” His voice is calm and even, but there’s an angry edge to it, and she can see the violent wreath burning in his dark eyes, no matter how hard he tries to conceal it. “It’s okay”, she whispers, and then she grabs his hand, and gently pulls the fist apart.

 

She doesn’t dare to touch his face, fights down the sudden urge to run her fingers over his brow, to smooth out the creases on his forehead, but she allows herself to hold onto his hand just a moment longer. When he squeezes her fingers between his own, she even manages to smile at him. “Just take a deep breath”, she murmurs, and adds, with a grin, “and don’t go on a killing spree, please. Crimson would clash horribly with that blue shirt.” He doesn’t laugh – she didn’t expect him to, to be honest – but he takes a deep, steady breath, and when he meets her gaze again, the storm in his eyes has calmed down. His voice is soft when he whispers another apology. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come in like that, just burst into your apartment like a berserk… I’m really sorry”, he finishes, and she sighs.

 

She could tell him that her family and the pack and some of her friends just barge into her home without announcing themselves, and he’d easily believe it, because that’s what they do with other people, but that’d be a lie. They treat her differently, and with a reason. But it’s not his fault that he saw her like this. “I thought you were Wylla. She left only moments before you knocked, I thought she’d forgotten something”, she explains softly, leaving out the part where he arrived 20 minutes too early. If he’d been on time, she would’ve changed into something less revealing than the faded crop top and loose, lace-lined satin shorts she’s wearing now. It’s what she usually wears for movie nights with Edd and the girls, and definitely _not_ something she wanted to wear when he comes over to get that care package she promised him.

 

“I- I didn’t wanna go on a killing spree”, he tells her quietly, and flexes his hands, as if he only now realizes that he curled them into tight fists. “I’m not a violent person”, he adds, and she chuckles and raises her eyebrows at him. “Of course you’re not a violent guy, but if seen that look in your eyes… same as my family, and the Karstarks and Mormonts and Cerwyns, of course.” She shrugs, and walks into her bedroom, to get the package for him. “They’ve all wanted to hunt him down – but he’s dead, has been for a long while. He can’t hurt me anymore, none of them can”, she mumbles, her eyes misty and starring into thin air, and stops abruptly as if catching herself. Shaking herself out of the cloud of darkness she fell into, she smiles at him, too broad and too brightly, and tries to change the subject by heaping jars and tin cans and tiny boxes upon the coffee table. Jon, darling that he is, looks at her with a slightly concerned expression, but focuses on the potions and remedies on the table, for which she is grateful.

 

“ _Okaaaay_ ”, she proclaims, drawling the word out longer than it has to be in an attempt to cheer herself up again, and starts rearranging bottles and plastic containers. “So I thought I’d show you all I have, and we choose a few things that might help you, and then you can try them, to see how they work on you, okay?”, she explains in a professional manner. It’s easier to slip into the role of the nice neighbourhood witch/future pharmacist than to let their thoughts linger on her scars and the people that gave them to her. “This”, she grabs a brown bottle that used to contain beer – no matter how long she tried to scrub it off, half of the original sticker is still there, **_~_** **MORMONT BREWERY~ Wheat Beer ~THE ORIGINAL SINCE 1804 AC~** , her uncle’s favourite – and passes it to him, “is more of the potion I already gave you. One bottle’s usually enough for a wolf night, with your height and weight and such, but if you need more, just tell me. As for the other things… you’re not allergic to anything you know of, right?”

 

He shakes his head, and she rubs her nose, thinking, and mentally going over all the things she could give him, and tries to ignore the way he looks at her, and the warmth in her stomach. In the end, she chooses some of the remedies that are popular with the other werewolves – a cream for scratches, some lotion for sore joints, an oil that’ll calm him down a bit, if needed – and she explains several normal, or as normal as it can get, products to him, and carefully packs two tin jars with different creams, a tiny enamel can with pills against headaches, and a flowery bath bomb for him, before her fingers hover over the bottle with the oil that’ll help him with his scars, the very same lotion that smoothed out the marred skin on her thighs and back.

 

“Your scars”, she starts, and stops when she notices how rigid he gets next to her on the couch, how his breath, so warm on her shoulder only a moment ago, grows shallow, and she fixes her gaze on the bottles and boxes in front of her, not wanting him to see her see his expression. But she’s a witch, and almost a pharmacist, and so she presses on. “It looks like they’ve been reopening during your transformations, like they’ve scarred again and again. You should rub this oil here into them regularly, at least once daily, and use a good body lotion, as well, preferably the one I put in here for you…” She’s busying herself with the cardboard box she’s filling for him, and hopes that she didn’t scare him off, that he won’t run away and never come back like all the customers that can’t meet her gaze and ask for something against that weird, green shimmering rash they got after a one-night-stand.

 

They both start speaking at the same time, her soft “Sorry, I didn’t want to…” and his awkward “Thank you” breaking the uncomfortable silence, and he gestures for her to speak first. “Do you have… somebody to help you with your back? With the lotion, I mean”, she squeezes out, and blushes a bit against all hope. At least he’s blushing, too. “Um, no, I don’t…” “Should I…?” “Oh, no, I don’t wanna impose on you.” “You wouldn’t, I’d really like to help. If you’re comfortable with that, of course”, she offers, and silently thanks the Old Gods and the New that none of her flat mates are home. The teasing would never end, she thinks, and then she stops thinking, because he slowly takes of his shirt with an expression that she can’t really read, and gods help her, he’s _beautiful_ , all sun kissed skin and firm muscles and angry scars, so completely at odds with his shy and quiet demeanour.

 

He turns his back to her, and she’s grateful, because he won’t see her blush like that, and she’ll get to look at his body without him watching. Trying to keep it professional, even if they’re friends, kind of, she chats a bit with him, and learns all the gossip of the office he works at, and that he’s got tickets for the festival that’s planned for just out of town in a few weeks, and that Ghost has found out how to open the door to the pantry all on his own, the normal gossip they always exchange. They’ve never gone deeper, they’ve never talked about the darker parts of his past and the things he survived, nor about what happened to her parents and Robb or the demons hiding in her dreams with their smiles of ruby and bone. 

 


	8. viii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Much shirtless, very denial, such sexy 😜

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's a bit longer than the others, and the last one I've finished yet 😬 but worry not, I'm already working on the next one

🌑

 

He spends the whole night at Sansa’s apartment, on her couch, with her in his arms, snuggled up against his chest while they watch several romantic movies. After he puts his shirt on again, not caring about the oily stains the lotion might leave there, while she changes into velvet sweatpants and a longer t-shirt, and also after a short discussion – he wants to pay her for the package without insulting her, and she refuses his money, as she did before – he offers to buy her dinner, and she orders a pizza and some pasta and dessert from the cute little Braavosi place down the street with a cheery voice and a smile on her lips, and asks if he’d like to watch a movie or two. It might almost be a date, he thinks to himself while they watch Maris the Maid and Uthor of the High Tower ride off into the sunset, and he thinks it again when she moans around a forkful of _delizia al limone_ , and feeds him a bite with her own fork and a sweet “Oh my gods, you _have to try this_.”

 

They talk about the pack and their shenanigans, the festival he’s got tickets for – her favourite band’s going to play there, and he offers to take her with him – and the movies they should watch. She confesses that she desnt like liquorice at all, that _Arya_ is the one that’s addicted to those shiny black pieces, and that she gave her the whole pack. When the world outside the lace framed windows of her flat turns from black to grey to blue, he tells her of his struggles, of the way he hated the wolf for some time. Over the course of the next one and a half weeks, Harry starts sleeping over at the girls’ apartment, and Sansa takes refuge at his, if she’s not out with one of her other friends. They watch movies and share food and snacks, and he tells her of his mother, her illness, her death, the foster home, what happened to him in the army, and of the struggles of finding his father’s family and the problems that followed, ending his weeklong confession with the night they met, with his fight against that Khal guy.

 

When he’s finished, Sansa sighs and rubs her thigh – she’s stopped wearing long sweatpants after the fifth or sixth night, and now she’s only wearing a cute, but short jumpsuit in the lightest shade of pink he’s ever seen – and starts telling him her story, beginning each part with a curt, but soft “He’s dead.” _She’s dead. They’re dead. I have many friends, you see, werewolves and wizards and sirens,_ she whispers with her gaze fixed on her scars or the ceiling or her nails, but never his face _._ She tells him of Joffrey Lannister and his friends and the scars they gave her, how they carved their wreath into her thighs and back, of Petyr and Cersei and their red smiles, red like rubies and pomegranates and _death_ , how they killed her father and manipulated and betrayed her, of the Hardyng boy and how he used her, and in the end, she even tells him what that damned, heartbroken, abominable, pitiable Frey girl did to her mother and brother. He wants to kiss the silent tears of her face, and he wants to go out there and kill everyone that’s ever hurt her, but most of all he wants to hold and comfort her.

 

He’s falling in love with her, he realises in that moment, slowly but surely, and he’s not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing. He only knows that he wants her to be happy, and safe.

 

🌑 October 🌑

 

Both of their calendars are filled to the brim – Jon has his 40 hour week plus overtime, football practice and gym, he tries to spend as much time with his dog and his normal friends as possible, his aunt invites him over for dinner on a regular basis and the wolves include him in their countless pack-bonding activities, while her own time is divided between college classes, working at the diner and producing her remedies, but if she’s not doing yoga, or going out with her girlfriends (and Edd) or spending time with her family, she’s usually with him, having dinner with him and watching movies at his when Harry’s over, to avoid hearing even _more_ unsettling noises from Wylla’s bedroom, or he comes to the diner to keep her company during the lonely, silent hours of her graveyard shifts.

 

It’s surprising just how easily he became a part of her life, she thinks, when she unlocks the door to his apartment with the key he gave her a few days ago – the whole pack has exchanged keys a long time ago, and as an honorary member she got all of them, too, so it doesn’t mean anything, she tells herself, he sees her as a member of his pack, just like everyone else, just like Arya and Alys, who’ve taken to calling him _bro_ – and is greeted by Ghost, who’s happy to see her and the bag full of Essosi food hanging from her elbow. Jon is nowhere to be seen, but she can hear the shower running, so she yells “Jon, I’m here” into the direction of the bathroom, biting her tongue because she almost said “home”, as if she were his girlfriend, as if they were living together, because she needs to stop those silly daydreams in which he likes her the way she likes him, and she blushes a bit, because he’s in the shower and she can’t help but think about him being naked, his curls dripping wet and foam gliding over soft skin and hard muscles –

 

 _No_. She shakes her head, trying to think of something else, something that doesn’t involve her dreams of him confessing his deep love for her, moving in with him, marrying him, something that distracts her from the heat in her belly at the forbidden thought of what if would be like if he bent her over the kitchen counter, or let his rough, calloused, but gentle hands wander under her corduroy miniskirt, or if she took off her clothes and went into that bathroom now. To stop herself from acting on those foolish notions, however much she secretly wants to, she starts setting the table in his little kitchen, and has to bite the inside of her cheek when she sees the lemon cakes in his pantry, because he knows what she likes – old movies and syringa blossoms and fluffy cushions and long, tight hugs – and tries to give her all those things. He’s trying to take care of her, in some ways, and she finds that she quite likes it. Sometimes she wonders what he would do if he knew about the _other_ things she likes, but not for long.

 

They’re just friends. He’s never made a move. If he was interested in her, if he liked her that way, he would’ve made a move by now, she tells herself, he sees her as his friend, his pack mate’s sister, nothing more. And yes, he’s shy, but she thinks that he has enough self-confidence to ask a girl out, and no girl would say ‘no’ to a guy like _him_. He’s so brave when he has to be, and he’s strong, but in a soft way, and he’s so gentle with her that she almost wants to cry. And that’s the problem. He knows just how damaged she is, he has seen her scars, felt her tears when she cried into his muscular chest. Why would a man like Jon, who’s sweet and thoughtful and sexy, want someone as broken and scarred like her? No, he deserves someone better than her, she reminds herself, _again_ , and opens a cabinet in search for some plates.

 

She almost drops them when the bathroom door creaks open and Jon, wearing nothing but a towel, his hair tousled and wet, emerges with an embarrassed smile and a shy “you’re an hour too early” on his plump lips.

 

🌑

 

Shit, shit, _shit_.

 

First, Mrs Dustin had given him a few extra tasks to test his skills so he got off an hour later than planned, then he’d gotten into a fight at the bakery when another customer had yelled at the poor salesgirl, and as if that hadn’t been enough, he’d missed his usual bus and had to take another one, one that was crowded by sweaty people. He’d just wanted to jump under the shower real quick and tidy up his flat a bit – he doesn’t own much, and the pack doesn’t really care, they’re all on the messier side, but he wants to make sure that everything’s neat and tidy for _her_ – but apparently she didn’t have those problems today, because she’s too early, even for her standards. She turns around immediately when he leaves the bathroom, and smiles apologetically when he returns from his bedroom, where he threw on some short sweatpants and a basic tee, her cheeks flushed rosy and her fingers working on the hem of her kimono style cardigan, and he curses himself for not grabbing some clothes that aren’t drenched in sweat on his way to the bathroom, while he tries to keep his eyes from wandering to the small expanse of pale skin between the batiked fabric of her top and her jean shorts.

 

It’s hard not to look at her, because she’s so incredibly beautiful with her sapphire eyes and high cheekbones and soft skin, and he can’t help but think about things he shouldn’t think about. Like how much he wants to spend the rest of his life with her, how he wants to hold her without fearing her rejection, how he wants to kiss her… everywhere. It makes him feel like a depraved bastard, to fantasise about this delicate woman who’s been through so much, and the part of him that wants nothing more than to explore her body and hear her moan, sigh, gasp, scream his name fights constantly with his urge his protect her and keep her save from all harm. He’s not sure if she would want him like this, his rough, calloused hands on her velvety skin, his broad frame hovering over her lithe form, his wild, animalistic desires. No, she deserves to be with someone who’s more like her, someone soft and kind and gentle, not an orphan turned outcast, a werewolf, a fighter like him.

 

 _Someone better than him, someone better than him, someone better than him_ , he whispers to himself when he helps her set the table, when his treacherous heart sings because it’s so damn domestic how they’re spending the evening together – having dinner and talking about her classes and his work and walking Ghost and cuddling up on the couch with some bad movie or the other playing quietly on the TV. Sometimes he wonders what it’d be like if he told her of his feelings – would she reject him, withdraw from him and leave his life? Or would they go on like this, but with kisses and soft touches, sleeping in the same bed and moving in together officially? He’ll never find out, he vows to himself. He cannot risk losing, or worse, hurting her.


	9. ix

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robb & Cat! 😬

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought that I'd get a lot more done during my days off, but then fever & headaches happened 🤷 turns out that Circe is a really shitty nurse 🐈👩⚕️ I hope you'll still like it tho 😬

🌓

 

He shouldn’t be this nervous, he thinks when he wipes his sweaty hands on his jeans for the third or fourth or fiftieth time, but he can’t help it. He doesn’t have any experience with meeting people’s parents – most of his older friends are orphaned, too, and none of his former relationships got serious enough for the girl to introduce him to her family – but Winterfell’s “were”-community has welcomed him with open arms so far, and her uncle and younger brothers seem to like him, so having tea with Robb and her mother can’t be _that_ horrible. But it’s different. He talked about the upcoming camping trip with Benjen, Bran never looked up from his phone, and Rickon managed to kick a football into his face two minutes after Sansa introduced them. They’re normal, or as normal as a werewolf and two baby wizards can be, and he doesn’t feel like he has to walk on eggshells around them.

 

Robb and Catelyn are not like that. Robb doesn’t like the way people stare at him, Harry tells him quietly in the darkness of a moonless night, and Catelyn – she no longer makes small talk.

 

And he’s so, so afraid of fucking this up, of been clumsy and involuntary rude and making mistakes he won’t be able to fix. He can talk about tents and help with the barbeque grill and show a teenager a football trick or five, but curses and necromancy and mutilation and people who should be dead? That’s a different matter. And no matter just how often Sansa tells him that he’ll be fine, he’s still nervous, even if he has Arya and Harry as some kind of buffer should all else fail. Robb and Catelyn, though he has never met them before, are his family, kind of – a part of the pack, passive members, no werewolves, but still bound to them by blood and love, and he wants them to like him, as much as they still can. Their friends and relatives are like cousins and aunts and uncles to him, they will, hopefully, and how much he hopes for it, be the godparents and babysitters of his future children, so he doesn’t want to fuck this up.

 

☀️

 

West, west, west –

 

Where grey clouds are crawling over the periwinkle blue sky, where darkness lurks behind the trees, where the witches come from. The wind blows his hair back and toys with the auburn waves looking out from under the kerchief Sansa has tied around her head, and they look at the sky above them, seeing, feeling, _smelling_ the upcoming storm, and a small smile, red like blood, pale like bones, blossoms on her lips when she pulls of her shawl and lets her long hair trail behind her like a banner. _She’s a witch_ , he realises with more clarity than ever before, _and he’s in love_.

 

They’re only a few kilometres away from where the first trees and vines claw into the old city walls, but it’s as if the forest has opened its mouth and swallowed them whole by the time Harry drives his Ford Thunderbird into the covert. Sansa’s fingers rest on his arm for just a moment or two when she climbs out of the backseat, but he savours the gentle pressure nonetheless, and takes the lemonade out of the trunk, wishing he were holding her hand instead of the crates. The dirt road they’re following now – Harry with another two crates and the girls with boxes and baskets filled with groceries – is in a good condition, not overgrown with grass and ferns, with patches of clean sand show that some potholes where mended recently, and he can spot a few amulets and talismans dangling in the branches stretching over the path. He can feel the magic throbbing in the air even before they reach the clearing.

 

It’s more of a cabin than a house, small and faded against the emerald tones of the forest behind and the vibrant colours of the flowers surrounding it – pimpernels and periwinkles and hydrangeas and cornflowers and forget-me-nots – and he remembers that someone told him that Benjen used to live here on his own, before everything happened and he moved into the narrow, but comfortable three-story house in motte street with the three youngest Stark children, leaving the cabin to his good-sister and nephew. It was built by a werewolf, but the high ceilings, the dark wooden beams and the runes carved into the washed-out wood make it look more of a witch’s home than anything else. Any trace of the bachelor live lived here is gone now, making way for crystals and gem stones, an abundance of potted plants and faded cushions and silver framed pictures of Starks long gone.

 

He wonders what live out here must be like, so isolated and yet so free, with nothing but the shadows under the trees and the never-ending sound of the forest in the night and yourself for company. Are Catelyn and Robb already half-mad with loneliness? Or calm and at peace, like hermits are? Neither of them makes their present known when Jon and the others enter and start carrying the groceries into the pantry and kitchen, but when he steps into the hallway again, he hears the soft, faint voices of Sansa and a stranger behind a closed door. He almost jumps when Harry puts his hands on his shoulders in what is meant to be a reassuring gesture, and forces a strained smile on his tense features. “You’re going to be okay, mate. They will- Robb will like you, I’m sure, okay? No need to be nervous now”, he tells him gently, and pushes him towards the door, where Sansa waits for him, false cheeriness on her face.

 

Robb Stark is – exactly like he imagined him to be, and completely different all at once. He’s a lot like Harry, the same character, the same hobbies, the same lives until he was cursed, and they’re able to make some small talk without Jon putting his foot in his mouth, talking about sports and movies and even girls, and switching to music when Robb’s gaze becomes too melancholic after hearing about Harry’s and Wylla’s last date night. “She disappeared”, Sansa whispers to him, later, in the kitchen, when they’re heating up the lasagne she’s brought. “Her name was- is Jeyne, and we’re going to find her. We have to. Maybe it’d help.” There’s so much determination in her eyes and her jaw and fire in her vines, and he can’t say anything against it. He can’t destroy her hope.

 

He helps setting the table, and when Catelyn Stark leaves her bedroom to join them for dinner, his nervousness returns.

 

Her gaze is blank, her face emotionless, and Arya has to lead her to the table while she looks through them all, unseeing, unfeeling, barely there. Her skin, her hair, her milky eyes, everything about her is some shade of grey, one paler than the other, safe for the scars on her face and throat, the angry red bright against the dead skin surrounding them. She doesn’t speak. She doesn’t eat. She doesn’t recognise her children. She’s nothing more than a walking corpse, and he can see the hearts of her children break again and again whenever they look at her, while a white flame burns deep inside him and his blood pounds in his ears, telling him to kill the Freys over and over again.

 

On the way back through the darkness under the trees, two pairs of eyes follow him, and he allows his fingers to curl around her hand gently. “How can I help?”, he murmurs, low enough so that only she can hear, and she falls a step back behind Harry and Arya, tucking on his hand lightly. “I’ve tried some spells – none of them worked. But there’s one I haven’t used yet. Maybe you could help me with that.” She smiles up at him, and her smile follows him into his dreams – as do two pairs of eyes, the milky, unseeing, dead ones of her mother, and eyes that look so much like hers that it almost hurts, the softest, brightest blue, but in a wolf’s face, and he swears to himself that he’ll try and give Robb his skin back.

 


	10. x

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> meet... Dany! 😊

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for all the kudos and the super sweet comments! 😊   
> this is by far the worst chapter i've written so far, but the next one will be better! 😅

☀️ 

 

Everything changes over the next few days. Burning heat and brightly shining crops disappear overnight, making way for the softer warmth of the late old women’s summer, and Wylla moves into an adorable little flat with Harry, leaving Sansa with an apartment that feels to big and too empty and too quiet. Sam starts researching curses and becomes addicted to the cupcakes Eleyna bakes for the diner sometimes, even after they tell him that they’re laced with fairy dust, and Bran finds a man in the Westerlands that matches the description of Jeyne’s brother Ray. And Jon – he stays the same. She thought that maybe, Harry and Wylla moving together would leave her without a valid reason to spend as much time at his, that it might affect their friendship, but it doesn’t. He offers to come over to hers more often than not, insists on bringing her takeout to repay her for all the food she brought him when she fled from horrible sights such as Wylla sticking her tongue down Harry’s throat, and admits that her apartment is more comfortable than his sparsely decorated one.

 

The sight of him entering her flat – the key she’s given him hanging from his hand, Ghost a pale shadow behind his legs, dark curls wet, trying not to step onto the rug with his mud-spattered boots – makes her heart flutter and warmth spread in her stomach, and she can’t help but grin up at him from where she sitting on the floor in sweats and a big shirt, one that she might have stolen from him when he fell asleep on her couch. There is a rainbow of ink on her fingertips and a pen sticking out of her messy bun, and she wonders for the shortest moment what he sees when he smiles at her like that, but then Ghost throws himself on the papers and books she’s scattered on the floor around her and they’re both busy rubbing his fluffy belly and trying to keep the notes from getting too messed up by the dog’s attempted gymnastics moves.

 

Jon apologies a thousand times, but somehow Ghost has managed to stay dry and clean, so there’s no mud on the papers, and she reorganises them quickly enough while his gaze flitters over book titles and sheets and sketches. “The book you lent me, the one this Melisandra –? Melisandey –? gave you, it inspired me to try something different. I’m currently working on the spell, I might need Sam to help me with that, but it could- it could work”, she tells him, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth when she’s finished, and he looks at the piece of paper he’s holding, neat but curly handwriting, some words highlighted in the softest shades of pink and yellow and lilac, and the carefully restrained hope on her face, laced with the fear of another disappointment. “Can I help you with this? I’d do anything, you know.” Her face lights up at that, and she smiles, her hands hidden in Ghost’s fur. “Well, there’s one thing I might need…” 

 

🌖 

 

This night is the end of summer, she can feel it in her bones – it’s like standing on the edge of a cliff, with the wind picking up and the clouds rise in the sky, the moon is hanging low in the sky, so big and round that it looks like a shining coin sewn to a veil of dark velvet, casting a bright shade of silver over wet meadows and overripe apples and dying roses that are only waiting for the cold of fall, and in the middle of it all is Jon’s aunt. Daenerys Targaryen. The only things she knows about her are what Jon told her with a gentle wariness, hinting at the things she’s capable of and speaking of how she cares for her family, or what’s left of it, and the report Arya has given her, nonchalant but well informed as always, on her powers and the things she’s done since moving to Winterfell, but she’s not surprised by what she sees.

 

Daenerys looks like a movie star from the last century, with a soft, round face and the palest hair, perfectly waved and barely brushing her collar bone. There’s a chill in the air, and she’s clutching her enormous coat of white fur to her chest, but Sansa can still see the elegant dress of vermillion red silk and the long gloves under it. Her smile is too white, her nails too sharp, her eyes too bright, and Sansa knows in an instant that there were feathers in her hair and blood on her lips yesterday, that this is why Jon bought some of her shampoo for a _friend_. There is still a shade of danger in the way Dany moves, but Sansa hugs her like an old friend and smiles at Dany’s excitement and giddiness. The moon was full only yesterday, so she’s probably still high on the feeling of the hunt, on blood and fairy dust and the fear of depraved men. Maybe Sansa will ask her if she’d like go to out with her and her girlfriends on a darker night, when all of them are more humans than anything else.

 

“Thank you for lending me the house, aunt Dany”, Jon tells her while they hug, and Dany goes on and on about her new boyfriend and how romantic he is and that they’re going to the opera tonight, and it’s almost half an hour before she blows them kisses and starts walking down the path to where her car is parked. “She’s nice”, Sansa mumbles, and Jon adds an exasperated “and incredibly enthusiastic. But I love her, of course. She’s still my aunt.” She nods, understanding exactly what he means, and turns around to look at the house, a pale beauty of carved wood and shimmering glass, surrounded by high grass and gnarly apple trees and partially overgrown with roses, the deep red cold in the moonlight. “We’re far, far away from everything – no internet, no cell phone service, no landline, nothing. Just like you wanted it”, Jon says when he opens the door, and she wanders around the main room for a moment.

 

It’s like a sunroom, three of the walls are just glass and wooden frames, with a small kitchen in the back and a staircase that leads upstairs, and the furniture is pale and timeless – Dany must really like old Hollywood glamour, she thinks when she carefully lays her bags on a crème-coloured chaise longue and slips out of her shoes – but the best thing is the view, the vast meadows behind the windows on one side and the ragged mountains on the other. “This will do”, she hears herself say, and then she shows him where she wants what – crystals and feathers and talismans hanging from the ceiling beams, post-its with runes on the windows, and candles in strategic places. She takes of her coat after a few minutes, and blushes when Jon notices her dress and gapes at her for a moment before he shakes his head and gets back to work, his movements slow after a wolf night, but not as strained as they used to be before they meet.

 

They don’t look at each other, suddenly feeling awkward around each other, but she clears her throat. They don’t have time for that now. Patting the spot next to her on the carpet, she opens the old leather tome Sam has given her, flips to the page she has marked, her throat dry with anticipation, and watches as Jon starts scattering the bone meal Davos has supplied her with.

 

🌖 

 

“I hope it worked”, he tells her later, when they’ve cleaned up the living room, when they’re sitting in the orchard with blankets and wine and the scent of roses heavy in the night air, and he wants to say more, say _you’re important to me_ and _I’d do anything_ _for you_ and _I love you_. The silence is loud around them, but the sound of hooves on stone is louder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soooo... they're getting some company out there, AND there will be more action in the next chapter ⚔️


	11. xi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The big fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 😬 there's violence, of course, and some hints at possible sexual violence/rape, but nothing of the sort happens and I tried to keep it vague 
> 
> Also the centaurs are more like satyrs, in that they only have one pair of legs, but, like, horse legs, if that makes any sense

🌖

 

It’s been several months, but Jon recognises the herd’s leader almost immediately – the long dark hair, the heavy eyeliner, the blue war paint on tanned skin and blood red fur, and the angry marks his teeth left that fateful night. Drogo is not alone, Jon can make out the shapes of three other centaurs behind his back who must be Cohollo, Qotho, and Haggo. His brain stops working at the sight of their angry expressions, and the only words he can think are _oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck_ and _Sansa_ _,_ _Sansa_ _,_ _Sansa_. She’s only a few steps behind him, a vision in a long, flowy, white lace dress. There’s a frown etched onto her face, and she’s wrapping his leather jacket closer around herself with pale fingers, holding a sharpie in her tight grip. He tries to tell her to get back into the house with a look and a gesture, but she only looks past him, clearly trying to figure out what’s going on.

 

“I didn’t know that you were back from rehab”, he calls out calmly, and adds “you look well”, hoping that they understand that he won’t give them trouble unless they ask for it. If it’s up to him, then they can do whatever they want, as long as they leave Dany alone and don’t harass anyone else. He doesn’t want to fight them again, especially not now, on the first day after a wolf’s night, with Sansa here and no backup. He doesn’t know if she can handle herself in a fight like this, he only knows what they will do to her if – he doesn’t want to think about it, so he concentrates on Dany’s ex-boyfriend again, and tries to position himself between the centaurs and the cabin, so that she can get there more easily should a fight ensue. Maybe they just want to talk, he tells himself, make sure there’s no bad blood between them, that this doesn’t grow into a bigger issue with the wolf packs of Winterfell and some other groups, that they don’t end up with a gang war or something like that, but Drogo’s answer destroys his hope.

 

“You’re not so brave now, are you? With no full moon to make you big and strong?”, he calls out, and Jon curses inwardly. “And no one here to help you, no other big, bad wolves, not even one of those skinny little bitches, I see. And she-“, he nods to Sansa, who is still standing behind him, damn her bravery, her loyality, her stupidity, “doesn’t look like she’d bite. Maybe we’ll find out-“ “ _No_.” It’s more of a growl than anything else, and one of the centaurs takes a step back, but Drogo _knows_ that he’s got an advantage, Jon can see it on his face, they both know it, and refuses to back off. “You leave her out of this”, he goes on, letting his lips curl back to reveal his teeth, still sharper than they should be under the clear, bright light of the waning moon. “This is between you and me. You’re acting all brave and strong, because you’re in your – your _horse_ form, because there’s four of you, but if it was just _you_ against _me_ , you’d be shitting your pants.”

 

His opponent is visibly fuming at his words, the three other centaurs looking at each other and their leader to see how he will, how they should react to that, and Jon almost jumps when he feels cool, soft fingers in his hand and under his t-shirt and the wet tip of a sharpie gliding over his lower back. “Get inside, _please_ , you’re not safe out here”, he whispers. He doesn’t think she’ll be able to outrun the centaurs with their long, horse-like legs, but he knows that she’ll keep them out of the house, the same way that she keeps out things far darker and less human, but she shakes her head – he can feel her hair gliding over his arm, she’s wearing it open and down tonight – and murmurs into his ear. “I’m not leaving you, Jon.” He wants to ~~kiss~~ thank her for having his back and yell at her for being so stupid. Four centaurs, who’re drawing their strength from the moon, against a werewolf under a waning moon and a witch whose skills lie with herbs and potions, she _has_ to see that they’re not standing a chance against them.

 

“Are those the guys that you–?”, she starts, and trails off, and he finishes the sentence for her, “beat up during my first full moon here? Yes. I guess they’re still pissed.” The sarcasm in his voice makes her snort, and he’s glad about it. If he dies tonight, he’ll at least die knowing that he almost made her laugh, and that’d be enough for him. He startles when her cold fingers brush over the naked skin of his back, and she pulls back. “I’m sorry, I just wanted to-“ “No, no, it’s okay – keep going.“ “They’re for strength and- and speed”, she explains shyly, drawing another rune on his back, and he wishes she’d keep her hands on him for ever, but they disappear soon enough, and she caps the pen again, putting it back in her pocket. The centaurs are still whispering, and he calls out to Drogo. “We could do this on a sunny day”, he offers, “when we’re all mere humans. That’d be fair. You don’t want people to think that you only won because you fought dirty like that, do you?”

 

“No, I don’t”, Drogo admits. “But this is ending _now_ , wolf scum. Just you against me, like you wanted it.” Jon exhales, relieved in some way, because he can take on one of them and win with the help of Sansa’s spells and runes. He doesn’t dare think of what might happen to her if Drogo wins. They both step forward, get into position, and Jon is ready to lunge at the centaur when Drogo says, without turning back to his friends, “Qotho, Haggo, get the girl.”

 

🌖

 

She sees how Jon turns to her, but then Drogo crashes into him, and the scraggy centaur with the evil shimmer in his eyes and the cruel smile on his lips canters towards her. She doesn’t turn, but sprints towards the cabin, slamming herself against the door when her hand misses the handle, and stumbles into the house, almost falling over the chaise longue in her haste. Her bag is where she left it, and she ducks behind the sofa with it, pulling out her grimoire and searching for the right spell with shaking fingers. She almost rips out a few pages before she finds it – the post-its were, after all, a good idea, and the colour system comes in handy, even if she barely uses the lilac marked defence spells, _at least not anymore_ – and she starts chanting the words to drown out the sound of Qotho’s hooves coming nearer and nearer. He’s pacing around the room slowly, clearly enjoying this, clearly underestimating her, _like they always do_ , and Sansa wants to hug her knees to her chest and hide and forget about the others, but she can’t do it. Not now, not when Jon is out there fighting against an angry centaur.

 

At least the spell works, smoke is pouring from her fingertips, thick and white and cold, filling the cabin and calming her. A crash and a curse tell her where one of them must’ve tripped over something – they shouldn’t be able to see their own hands in this fog, but she can still make out shadows and shapes, and she sends a wave of power and a side-table at one of them, slamming him against a wall, the sound of a bone shattering making her want to vomit – and she crawls over the hardwood floor towards the door, when her hand touches something hard, and jagged, and cold. She slices open her palm when she grips the fist-sized amethyst that must’ve rolled under the chaise longue when they were cleaning up, but she still holds onto it. Maybe she can throw it and knock the other one out. The other one –

 

Suddenly, there are hands gripping her, pulling her up, shoving her against the wall, and gaunt fingers wrap around her throat. Qotho is starring at her with hatred in his red, teary eyes, and she claws at his grip with one of her hands, scratching her nails along his arm. “I’ll kill you, you fucking little witch”, he tells her, and she believes him, believes that she will die now. The amethyst bites into her palm, blood is dripping down her fingers, and she raises her hand without thinking about it, smashing in his cheekbone with the gemstone.

 

🌖

 

She stumbles out of the cabin with red marks on her throat and blood staining her long white dress, and he doesn’t care about what Cohollo does behind him – the centaur hasn’t even looked at him, just helped Drogo get up from the ground as soon as he surrendered, and he kept out of the fight the whole time – and he only opens his arms to her and whispers _sorry sorry I’m so sorry I couldn’t pro_ _t_ _e_ _c_ _t you_ into her hair while she clings to him like he’s her lifeline, while the centaurs leave with broken legs and broken faces. The smoke has cleared up in the cabin, there are blood stains on the floor and broken furniture shattered around, but the only things he sees are the cuts on her hands and the angry bruises on her throat and the way her fingers tremble while the adrenaline wears of. It’ll take hours for them calm down enough to sleep.

 

“We could’ve died”, she murmurs, and she must still be high on adrenaline, because suddenly her hands are in his hair, and his are on her waist, and their lips are locked.

 


	12. xii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m truly sorry if someone was hoping for smut, but I decided to jump right to the next morning 😬 
> 
> Also, for the whole thing with the flowers in October/November: it's ~magic~

☀️

 

The night grows pale behind lace curtains and glass, fading into the lighter shades of the early morning, and Sansa wakes up warmer, softer, far more comfortable than she usually does, her body pressed against the hot, solid form next to her. There’s an arm slung around her and a heartbeat under her ear, and she never wants to leave the cosy bed with the silken sheets and the fluffy cushions ever again. It’s like waking up in the middle of the night, completely, perfectly, utterly comfortable, and ready to fall asleep again. And then she realises where, and with whom, she is right now. _Jon_. She slept with Jon Arthur Snow. They’re in his aunt’s cabin. She smashed in some centaur’s face. They tried to – she manages to wiggle out of Jon’s embrace without waking him, and watches for a moment as he grabs a pillow, burying his face in the grey fabric and mumbling her name, before she tiptoes out of the room, down the stairs and into the main room.

 

Her dress is laying on the floor, white lace and muddy hem and russet stains, and she hesitates before she slips into it and hooks the front together. She’d felt like a real witch when she wore it, with the embroidery and the flowy skirt and the robe-like cut, and maybe the semi sheer fabric and the deep neckline and the long slit in the front made her feel sexy, too, for a night alone with Jon, out in the woods. Now it’s bloodied and dirty and ripped, but maybe she’ll get the stains out and sew the ripped hem back together. Her panties are nowhere to be found, and she curses silently while looking for them. What if Dany finds them? What will Jon think of her when he sees them in the light of day? He’d just pulled them down and threw them somewhere behind him while he pushed her against the wall, his face buried in her neck and his other hand between her thighs, and she hadn’t cared about the fact that she wasn’t wearing red satin or black lace, but nude coloured cotton back then.

 

All worries about her panties and what might happen to them are forgotten when she finds her bag, and she rummages through it for a few, agonizingly long moments, before she manages to pull out her phone. No service out here, she remembers while she tries to pull on her boots, and so she writes a short note on a post-it and sticks it to the door where he has to find it, pale orange on exfoliating white paint, allows her hand to linger on the old frame for a moment, and then she enters the woods.

The forest is still asleep, and she treks at least three kilometres down the path before she pulls out her phone, praying to the Old Gods and the New that she has service or internet or whatever. It’s on silent, but there’s still enough battery left for her to see 58 missed calls, 81 voice messages and 376 texts. She calls Robb with trembling fingers, and his breathless voice sounds so unbelieving and so happy that she can’t make out what he’s saying at first. “Where are you? Are you okay? Why didn’t you answer your phone?” “I’m out in the woods, but I’m on my way back to town right now, don’t worry about me.” “Okay, but Sansa, Mum– I don’t know what happened, but something _must’ve_ happened, because, she’s _changed_. She grabbed my face and she _cried_. You have to come here, _right now_.” She starts running.

 

Cley picks her up in his sister’s car, and she tries not to think about what might have happened in there, but she can’t help but wonder if there’s underwear lost under the seats. She will think about the whole thing with Jon later, she vows to herself. What Cley tells her is a lot more important right now. “I don’t really understand what’s going on, but from what your siblings have written in the group chat and from what Karstark told me, it seems like Cat- like your mum kinda woke up. Like from a coma. She looked at Robb, really looked _at_ him, not _through_ him, and she tried to say something, tell them something.” He shrugs, trying to sound cool and mature and untouchable, but she takes the unlit cigarette out of his mouth and puts a hand on his arm, so lanky under his big leather jacket. They don’t talk until they reach the cabin. 

 

☀️ 

 

Cat’s hair is still as white and lanky as before, and the red scars on her cheeks and throat are bright against her ashen skin, but her bony, skeleton like hand is curled around Rickon’s upper arm and her pale, milky eyes focus on Sansa and Cley when they step out of the shadows that linger under the pine trees. Cat and the boy are sitting on the porch, his head resting on her shoulder as he’s sleeping with his mouth open, and neither of them wake him up. Cley disappears inside, probably to look after the others, and Sansa sits down next to her mother. Cat takes her hand, and when they look at each other, there are tears in her eyes. 

 

🌖 

 

Maybe his first girlfriend was right. _Maybe he really doesn’t know shit_ , he thinks, when he enters the Stark cabin that evening after agonizing over the events of the previous night for _hours_ , even going as far as thinking about asking _his aunt_ for advice, without telling her what they did to the couch and the carpet and the guest room, of course. That and the fight and the way she looked at him and how she left the next morning and all those confusing messages in the group chat and the sex, _gods_ , the sex was – and now he doesn’t know what’s going on, what it meant, _if_ it meant anything at all, and the only thing he knows for sure is that Sansa Aregelle Stark is the single most precious person in the world, that he wants to spend the rest of his life with her, and that he can’t bear losing her. He’ll do whatever he has to do to keep her, be it as a friend or something more, he’ll take whatever she’s willing to give him.

 

She’s in the kitchen, Robb tells him with a hand on his shoulder and a tired happiness in his eyes, and Jon stands in the doorway for a moment, just looking at her. She’s humming to herself, a song he recognises from the fairy tale movie they watched in her apartment a few nights ago, her steps soft as a ballerina’s as she carries plates and glasses around, her bright copper hair a stark contrast to the darkness outside the big windows behind her. There’s a lightness in her movements he’s never seen before, and he guesses that a great weight must’ve been lifted from her shoulders when she found out that ~~their~~ her spell had worked. When she turns around and sees him, her face breaks into a bright smile, and she almost jumps into his arms when she hugs him. He buries his face in her hair and inhales her scent, the same sweet trace of forget-me-nots and citrus and rain that clung to the sheets he woke up in, and he holds her as tightly as he can without hurting her.

 

And then she loosens her arms around him and takes a step back and shatters his heart when she whispers “I’m sorry, was that- okay for you?”. Suddenly they’re like strangers, as if they’ve never seen each other’s scars, cried in each other’s arms, shared their darkest memories with each other. “Can we…”, she starts, and looks over his shoulder, towards the living room, from where they can hear the loud, careless laughter of Arya, and Rickon’s raised voice, “can we talk outside for a moment?” She leads him out the backdoor and across the meadow, wading through periwinkles and cornflowers and pimpernels and hydrangeas, and stops suddenly in the middle of the field, her fingers curling around blossoms and stems. The shadows under the trees and the grass around them are tinted the lightest shade of midnight blue, and he can see the veins shimmering under the thin skin of her wrists when she gathers some petals in her hands.

 

“I didn’t allow myself to hope. All the other times, nothing changed, but now – she can’t speak, but she _tried to_. She tried to form words, nothing came out, but Alys knows how to read lips and she told us what she said. She recognises us, and she acts like a normal, a _real_ , person again”, she tells him, calm and excited at the same time, and he smiles with her, _for_ her. They talk about Cat for a while, before Sansa turns away from him, and he knows that she’s going to talk about an intimate issue know, because he _knows_ her. He knows her and he loves her. “About last night-“, she starts, and stops, and picks apart another cornflower, before she continues. “Don’t tell anyone what’s happened, please.” Bright blue petals fall from her hands, gliding through the chilly night air for a moment before they disappear, and his heart shatters in his chest.


	13. xiii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry for not posting anything the last few weeks, but work was stressful and I’ve had the first part of my finals (at least the worst is over, the oral part can’t be *that* hard) 😬 and I can say now that we’re getting closer to the grand finale, at long last 😊

🌗

 

They don’t get to talk about it for three days, three long days filled with a heady sort of giddiness and several attempts at finding out how to communicate with Cat and unsettling news from Essos and soft, nervous glances when she thinks he’s not looking at her, until she’s working the night shift again and he comes in, dark and handsome and smiling in a way that makes her stomach flutter. She guesses that he’s just as nervous as she is – she’s spent the last few days agonizing over that night in the woods, pondering on both the meaning of what’s happened and about the consequences it’ll have on them, on their relationship. Does he want more than friendship? Or was it a mistake he’d like to forget as soon as possible? How can they go on, now that they’ve crossed this unmarked border? It’s changed everything, she’s sure of it, and no matter how hard she tries to treat him just like she did before, there’s a difference in how they act around each other, an uncertainty of kinds. The fact that they’ve not spoken about it once only aids to her insecurities, and she’s not entirely sure if she really wants to hear what he has to say, but they _have_ to talk about it sooner or later.

 

The clock above the swing door reads 2.54 and she’s on her third homemade energy drink (magnolia berries and guarana and magic and loads of espresso, the newest addition to her assortment, and it works, at least a bit), sitting on the counter with her feet on a stool and her grimoire in her lap and Lady snuggled up against her thigh, looking at the text message Arya has redirected from someone named Brea to the wolves’ group chat. and he stops in his tracks with his hands in the pockets of his fur lined jacket and a nervous smile on his lips when he sees her. It doesn’t reach his eyes. It feels like they’re strangers now, she thinks, as if they haven’t seen each other’s pain and scars and hollowness, as if their friendship has reached its peak when they tumbled up those stairs. They stood on the mountain top for a few hours, and fell down into the ravine when the morning came.

 

“So, about that night…”, he starts, and stops himself, and starts again. “I’ve not told anyone, so we… we can go back to how it was before. We can be just friends, or not, if that’d make you feel uncomfortable”, he offers, and she feels her nails biting into the sensitive skin of her palms. So he doesn’t want her that way. He has realized that she’s not the girl he wants, that that night was the result of fear and lust and desperation, and now he tries to end it as gentle as possible, as if he doesn’t know that she won’t tell anyone, that she won’t run to the wolves and ruin everything for him. She’s glad that he didn’t tell anyone, that the pack doesn’t have to give him trouble for sleeping with her, like they did with the others. She won’t make them choose between Jon and her, between their new pack mate with his wolf blood and the girl they’ve all grown up with. She doesn’t say anything about that, he probably already knows it. “Of course we can be friends”, she tells him instead, and tries to smile. She doesn’t see the quiet disappointment in his eyes when he leaves.

 

☀️

 

He never thought he’d see her at his office again, not after two weeks of them avoiding each other after an awkward movie night where both of them tried to keep it cool and failed miserably, and when he does, he thinks that maybe, just maybe, the gods are not as cruel as he thought them to be. She’s radiant in her pale yellow coat and patterned stockings, her hair and bright eyes a stark contrast to the dim, gloomy November mist creeping through the open door and into the lobby, and for a moment he thinks that this is it, that she’s here to confess her love for him in a romantic gesture like they always do in those silly movies she likes to watch (they’re not silly, and every time she talks about her favourites with a breathless voice and passion in her movements, he falls a little bit more in love with her).

 

But of course she’s not waiting for him. She smiles at him awkwardly, that kind of smile you reserve for strangers in lonely streets, and he pretends to explain some files to Pod while she stares through her phone, her face hidden behind her long red hair, and he curses himself. That night was a mistake. Maybe something would’ve started that night, maybe they would’ve tried having a relationship, be it serious or casual, if only she liked him the way he likes her. But she doesn’t, no, she’s made it clear when she asked him not tell anyone. That night’s just a silly mistake for her, and he could live with it, but somehow their friendship faded away like mist. That’s the worst thing for him – not her rejection or his crushed hope, the hope he didn’t even allow himself to have because he was lucky enough to even be the friend of this wonderful, kind, brave woman, but the strain it put on their friendship.

 

Maybe it’ll get better if both of them are in stable relationships with other people, he thinks, hopes, _dreads_ , maybe they’ll go back to normal if he has a girlfriend, if she’s happy with someone else. Sansa, at least, is moving on, he thinks to himself, when he sees how enthusiastically she greets Mr Bolton, their law firm’s newest junior partner, by hugging him with a loud squeal.

 

☀️

 

She hasn’t talked to Dom in ages, she realises when they chat in that little bistro across the street from his office, and she feels horrible about it, even though he insists that it’s only natural, with all the things that’ve happened during the last few months, while he was in the capital for some sort of internship. She’s missed him, his quiet reassurance and his soft sarcasm and the way he holds her hand when he gives her some advice. And of course, their girls’ nights out aren’t the same without him. She usually goes dancing with Myranda and the other sirens, and now even Dany, though she could barely met her eyes the first time they took Jon’s aunt to their favorite club, the memory of what they did to the rug in Dany’s cabin still too fresh in her mind, she bakes with Eleyna and Beth and Jeyne, there’s the girls she does yoga with, but she only goes to the movies with Dom and Wylla and Alys and Arya.

 

Dom has an understanding of characters and stories and history like no one else, and she likes seeing the world through his eyes when he tells some anecdote or the other. He always takes a step back, he’s told her once, and examines people and situations from afar, not allowing prejudices or feelings to cloud his judgement. Talking to him about his career and her mother and their love lives makes her wonder if she really _understood_ Jon, or if she misinterpreted his words and his actions, if she allowed her own insecurities to get the better of her, if she only heard what she expected him to say. Maybe she’d have to talk to him again, explain herself and her reasoning better. Maybe she still has a chance to be with him.

 


	14. xiv

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New chapter, new drama 🙊 Edd doesn’t know what’s going on and adds to the misunderstandings between them, clumsy ~*foreshading*~ is clumsy, and we’re getting closer to the ~*grande finale*~
> 
> And thank you for all the kudos and comments, they're really inspiring 🤗

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I added a paragraph or two from someone else's POV, I hope it's not too confusing 🙈

☀️ November ☀️

 

“ _Sooo_ , what you are saying is that you’re… you’re dumb? Am I hearing this correctly? You’re just whining ‘cause you’re dumb?” Sam dramatically falls back into the armchair Jon has only bought a few weeks ago, the armchair that fits perfectly into the _aesthetic_ of his apartment, just as _she_ told him it would, and covers his face with his hands. Edd just exclaims “I have _no idea_ what’s going on right now. I was only told that there would be food”, complete with a perfect side-eye glance at Jon, who now has the sudden urge to throw himself onto some piece of furniture just like Sam. “Guys, you’re supposed to _help_ me here. And no, Edd, you’re not helping by emptying my fridge”, he grumbles, and grows serious. “This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done, and I don’t what it to ruin our relationship.” “I don’t really know if we’re the right guys for that kind of thing, I mean, relationships and one-night-stands aren’t really what I specialise in.” “You’re in a relationship, Sam, and both of you know how girls think. Please, just tell me what to do. I really like S– her and I don’t want to make her uncomfortable.”

 

“Make sure that she knows that you’re okay with just being friends. That you see her as a colleague and not as a potential girlfriend. Try not to be creepy. I don’t know what else to say”, Sam tells him with a shrug, and adds, “and maybe not fucking your secretary would’ve been a good idea.” “She’s not- it’s not Miss Tallhart, like, _no_ , do you know how _old_ she is? That’d be disgusting. No, it’s someone else, maybe not from work, but someone I’m seeing on a regular basis because- because of reasons, okay?” “Is it someone from this building? Don’t tell me it’s Meera from 4a, Gilly’s been betting on her for weeks now and I can’t lose that one”, Sam gasps, and Edd joins in. “Or Val from the Gym? No, then maybe Jory? That’d be horrible. Or maybe Mrs Glover from the farmers market?” “No, no, no. I shouldn’t’ve told you idiots”, Jon sighs, and flops down on the couch. They keep teasing him until Edd’s phone starts ringing. He leaves with a worried expression, but neither Jon nor Sam notice it.

 

🌓

 

A sliver of moonlight falls through the half-drawn curtains and spills onto the rug, where Edd is busy building a nest of pillows and blankets, and Sansa pulls back the drapes to let it into the living room of Jeyne’s apartment. Somewhere back in the kitchen, Wylla is mixing cocktails, while Torr helps Jeyne choose a movie. Her freshly baked cookies and hot chocolate with mini marshmallows are ready, and she makes herself comfortable on the couch, stretching her long limbs and watching Edd and Jeyne and Torr through half-closed eyelids. They haven’t done this in a while, it’s been difficult because of their busy schedules with Jeyne’s work and Wylla’s new boyfriend and her own mother, and they only do it when everyone’s present, because pyjama parties are reserved for the squad. And that’s what they are, what they’ve always been. It started when they moved here and uncle Benjen introduced her to Edd and Torr. Their kindness, gentleness, honesty, had been exactly what she needed after the horrors of King’s Landing, of the Twins, of the Eyrie. Wylla had been one of her class mates, and they’d become friends pretty quickly, not least because of Wylla’s crush on the older brother of Edd and Torr, while Jeyne had been one of her kindergarten friends.

 

“So, Sansa, how’s your mum?”, Jeyne asks once they’re all lounging around the room, Edd and her and Torr cuddling on the floor and Wylla draped over an armchair like a Valyrian goddess of old. Sansa is sipping on the drink Wylla has given her, something that’s too sparkly and too pink and too sweet to taste the vodka in it, and she feels it bubbling in her throat like champagne when she leans forward to look at her friend. “She’s… well. Her gestures, and her facial expressions are almost like they were- before, and she’s writing, or she tries to. Her movements are a bit sluggish, but her writing slowly becomes more legible, I think.” “Gods, that’s awesome. After all this time.” Jeyne smiles at her, soft and honest, and Edd sighs. “At least _some_ good news. Jon’s been whining the whole week now, and he won’t stop”, he moans, and throws his hands in the air when Torr looks at him sharply. “I’m not complaining about his complaining, I’m complaining about the fact that he complains, but refuses to _do_ anything about it. He doesn’t want our help, he doesn’t listen to our advice, it’s like the fucking turquoise thing all over again”, he tells them, and adds a soft “’m sorry” in Wylla’s direction.

 

“Okay, let’s pretend that he never mentioned the turquoise-thing before _someone_ throws a fit”, Sansa says slowly, with a pointed look at Wylla and her arms raised in what is meant to be a calming gesture, but Edd must be really, _really_ annoyed by whatever Jon’s whining about, and so he keeps talking. “She could have just gone to the salon and gotten it fixed, or whatever they do there, but she had to cry about it instead and then she wore that horrible hat for _weeks_ , instead of, you know, _getting it fixed_.” “Have you ever been to _that_ kind of salon before? They almost killed me when they found out. I had to _plead_ with them, for fucks sake, Gwynesse Harlaw even made me go down on my knees and swear to never ever do it again.” There are tears in Wylla’s eyes – she’s the best actress of them all, and the most dramatic person Sansa has ever met – and she huffs and puffs and sniffs, until Edd apologises to her. “I’m sorry, I really am, and I understand that the turquoise thing and Jon’s crush aren’t the same thing”, he mumbles, and suddenly the whole turquoise thing is forgotten.

 

“Wait what – Jon has a crush?! On whom? Oh my fucking gods, Eddard Karstark, why didn’t you tell me? You’re supposed to tell me everything!”, Wylla yells, both Jeyne and Torr cover their ears and look at each other with understanding in the depths of their dark eyes, and Sansa feels her heart stutter in her chest. Could it be–? “He’s got a crush on some girl from work, and he’s told her, and she rejected him, and now he’s unsure because they’re still working together”, Edd stutters, as fast as possible, and Wylla looks kind of disappointed, but then, she’s almost living of gossip and this isn’t exiting enough for her. At least she won’t tell others, or so the rational part of Sansa hopes. The other part of her wants to curl up on the floor, in Edd’s arms, with cookies and alcohol and some silly, overly romantic movies playing on tv. Edd and Wylla are still talking, about Jon or the turquoise thing, she’s not sure, but Torr notices how she’s chewing on her bottom lip, and takes her hand, and Jeyne asks, her voice quiet and soft, “what does your mother write? Does she communicate with you that way?” “Um, no, not really. She only writes some words, _Ned_ , _Edmure_ , and our names. Mostly it’s just _black fish_ and _little finger_ ”, she shrugs, “we don’t know what she means with that.”

 

☀️

 

He loves Braavos in the winter. It’s a beautiful city in the summer, too, but most tourists leave the secret city before the Stranger’s day, and without the throngs of sweating, wheezing bodies pushing through the Temple of the Moonsingers and the Sealord’s menagerie and plazas and museums and restaurants, Braavos belongs to its locals. Well, mostly, he thinks, when a giggling young woman asks her boyfriend to stop teasing her, her Westerosi coloured with an accent from the Reach, or the Crownlands perhaps. They take a picture before the Moon Pool, and she smiles up at him with a broad smile, showing of her pearly white teeth, before they walk away. His cup shakes in his hand, almost spilling espresso over his newspaper, and he puts it down on the little table, not seeing anything for a moment. The girl reminds him of Jeyne, of dark eyes and curly hair, and she’d be as old as that stranger, if she’d – he won’t think it. He cannot allow himself that distraction. What’s done is done, you can’t repeat the past, only learn from your mistakes. He couldn’t save Cat, Robb, the girl, but he can try and keep the others safe. Let Benjen and Edmure take care of them, while he hunts down their enemy, across borders and seas, always trying to be a step ahead of him.

 

He leaves a few bills on the table, more than enough to pay for his lunch, and wraps his shawl around his neck, his fingers brushing over the cool stone pinned to his coat. Maybe he’ll take them on a holiday once it’s all over, play the tour guide and show them his favourite spots in Braavos, Lys, Volantis, on the Summer Islands and along the Zamoyos, all the places he visited during his hunt, places where he learned and made allies and set traps and tried to get into his mind. He used to think that he knew him well, but that was before he went south, before they all went south and everything went wrong. And he may be powerful and battle-tried, a veteran of enough wars to know what he’s capable of in the heat of the battle, and still rather quick with his wand and his curses, but he knows that he’s getting old. And the boy – he stills thinks of him as the boy, even after all this time, even after all that has happened – he’s too good for him, too powerful, too skilled, too good at _planning_ , always a step ahead of him, and way too ruthless. Both Cat and Robb had been skilled warlocks, and they hadn’t stood a chance against him. They had been too honourable, all of them, and the boy hadn’t been, and now they were dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The pic is also on my tumblr https://kissed-by-circe.tumblr.com/post/185793012448/where-moon-vines-and-night-shade-blossom-chapter 😊


	15. xv

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Finale Grande™️, extra long because it's a special day (I got to take little Circe home on 7 July 2018😍) 
> 
> And there will be a huge happy end for everyone, don't worry, I promise 😊

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so not really much Jonsa in this chapter, but there'll be more in the epilogue 😊 thanks for all the kudos and the sweet comments 🤗💕

☀️

 

The old woman sitting opposite him in the train car looks him up and down, her lip curling in disgust, before she adjusts the newspaper resting on her lap and looks away in such a primly manner that he has to restrain himself from snorting. Unseeing hag, blind old thing. If it wasn’t so warm on the train he wouldn’t have taken off his parka, and she’d see nothing more than a normal looking man in his sixties, a craftsman maybe, or a hunter, in a knitted sweater and corduroy pants and old boots, with a gundog curled up between his feet and an unsuspicious looking twill rucksack under his arm, but now she only sees the tattoos, creeping up his neck and gliding down his arms, runes older than this civilisation. None of them understands what they mean, how they protect him, and none of them sees how the runes shift from time to time, dancing over his skin, their bronze colour barely visible on his forearms, still tan from the long summer and longer fall, more prominent on his pale throat and completely hidden under his hair where they reach past his ears. Unseeing daylighters, so ignorant about the power all around them, so recklessly unaware of the dangers lurking behind smiles with teeth too sharp to be normal and hands with too many fingers to be human and faces too blurry to see the eyes in them, if there are eyes at all.

 

 _They have no idea_ _about the danger they’re all in_ _right now._

The anonymous source that’s been providing them with information for more than two years now is sure that something will happen soon, and while Yohn is not the kind to trust anyone on anything, especially not someone who writes them an email every few months under the pseudonym of ‘ _a friend’_ and cannot be traced back by anyone, not even his Ysilla with her incredible skills, he’s pretty sure that he knows who’s behind them. They have fought together during that horrible summer when their high priestess, unstable and useless as she was at times, died, when the nights were filled with songs and they spent their days praying for silence, when Harry Hardyng’s smiles grew sharp and his eyes became lifeless. It’s been a bit more than five years now, five long years of peace, with two weddings and three little grandchildren for him and young Robin fading away in his hospital bed while Janyce, his foster mother, cried by his side, enough time to make him feel old and his bones feel heavy now. They should’ve made sure they killed _him_ then, back when they were younger and stronger, but they weren’t powerful enough then, and they’re not powerful enough now. They spent the last years getting old and fat and most of them got reckless, too, not him, but many of the others, while the other improved his technique and refined his skills, working towards revenge. He always wanted power, and his obsession with that girl – Yohn has loved enough women in his life to know that what Baelish felt for that girl and her mother was different from what he feels for his wife, may her soul find peace, and his Ysilla and Andar’s little girl, and it frightens him, even more than the report hidden in his rucksack.

 

🌕

 

Somehow, she always knew that this day would come. She tried to tell herself that he’s dead, that he cannot touch her anymore, but she still always had that feeling in the pit of her stomach, that lingering icy shiver between her shoulder blades, telling her that he’s still somewhere out there, watching, planning, _waiting_. There’s no real warning – most would send a familiar or a threat or a sign, but he’s never liked playing by the rules, and she doesn’t expect him to. He taught her well, after all, and she knows him better than most. She’s been too reckless for too long, too preoccupied with her mother and her brother and the whole thing with Jon, she realises, almost too late, when Mrs Reed comes to the diner and tells her to be more careful, _the fog is rising_ , her green eyes shimmering milky and unseeing as she reaches for the cup of coffee she ordered – Sansa pushes it towards her haggard hand, and wonders just how much Mrs Reed sees when the older woman smiles at her – and it fits in so very well with the email the _Guild of the Green Vale_ has sent her a few days past, and the news report about bodies found in the canals of Braavos with their tongues cut out.

 

His marionettes are all long gone – her aunt and her cousin and Harry perished in what some call _the Red Summer_ , the surviving Freys exiled to the farthest corners of the world, and most of the manticores and witches down in King’s Landing killed by each other – but she knows just how powerful and clever he used to, how harmless and friendly he always seemed to be. They let him fool them, naïve and trusty as they all were, and so many died for it. _He’s always fooled them._ They never saw him coming, and they don’t see it now, too. She always hoped that there’d be an army behind her, witches and werewolves and sirens and merpeople, teamed up against this powerful sorcerer, but now she’s on her own, and in the twilight no less, with the air outside the windows gleaming with tension and loaded with the kind of magic that aids only witches and no one else. The fog out there in the fading darkness creeps up the walls of the diner and up the windows, and she swears wordlessly when a tendril of mist winds through a crack and into the serving room. The door opens slowly, creaking as it does, fighting against the man in black, the hexfoils and butterfly crosses carved into the wood writhing like snakes. The spray of dried catkin branches over the counter rustles, as a sudden gust of wind rushes through them, and the adder stones hanging next to the entrance bang against the wall.

 

He’s wearing a trench coat with matching gloves and a matching hat, the darkest shades of black, but she recognises him even when he has his back to her – she’d recognise those shoulders everywhere, and the line of his neck, and the back that she looked at longingly so very often, wishing for something sharp and cold in her hand to stab him with, just like he backstabbed her father. One gaze to the far right, as quickly as she can, tells her that Mrs Reed’s sitting in a booth, and she hopes that the older woman will be able to crawl under the table if she has to, while her hands act on their own accord, one of them reaching for the purse on the shelf, grabbing a sharpie on pure instinct, and the fingers of the other one drumming on the door behind her. She doesn’t see him turning around, but she imagines that he does it in a rather dramatic fashion – he’s good at acting, and he has a _passion_ for it, too – and there’s an irritated note in his voice when she looks up from her arm and the runes she’s been drawing. “I thought I’d taught you that it’s impolite to ignore people on purpose”, he says, and a shiver runs down her spine, but she finishes the outline of a moth on her wrist before she looks up at him. “You also taught me that playing dirty will get me better results. I listened, I _always_ listened. Mrs Reed, could you come over here, behind the counter?”

 

His brows, flecked with silver and grey, are raised mockingly, but he doesn’t stop Mrs Reed when she gets up and walks over to the counter, the tip of her white cane scraping over the tiled floor and her gaunt hand feeling for chairs and tables, and he doesn’t move when Eleyna sticks her head out of the kitchen door, a worried expression on her soft face. “Could you lead Mrs Reed out the backdoor, please?” Her voice is calm and collected and gentle, but she grabs the younger girl’s arm and squezzes it tightly, a silent plea to get out of here, _now_ , and understanding and worry paint Eleyna’s face a paler shade. She’ll probably alarm their circle and the wolves and most of the others, but right now all that matters is that she gets herself and Mrs Reed to safety, while Sansa distracts Baelish. She turns back to him, and smiles sweetly, the same smile she etched onto her face for so long that she worried she’d never stop smiling. “You never wore black. Are you mourning aunt Lysa?” “No, sweetling, but your new beau wears it. It thought it might be why you like him – there’s not such else he has to offer but his looks, I think.” His smile is sweet and thick like honey, and her fingers close around a pouch filled with a powder made from bones and petals and gemstones and stardust, curling around it until her knuckles turn white. _He knows of Jon._ He likes playing dirty, and he’ll try to hit her where it hurts the most, her family, her friends, _Jon_.

 

What can she do now? Try to distract him and hope that everyone flees or comes here to fight? Try to fight him herself? In the end, she doesn’t get to make the first move. She’s distracted, and Mrs Reed steps forward, ready to shield her with her slight form, and Baelish sends a spell, nothing more than an elegant flick of his wrist and a horrible, horrible smirk on his face, in her direction. Mrs Reed keeps standing, tall like a willow in a storm, her eyes glowing eerily and her hair floating around her sharp face, even as Eleyna tries to pull her down behind the counter, and Sansa throws the pouch at Baelish, who almost doubles over from the impact. There’s smoke everywhere – the mix works like a Molotov cocktail, an invention of some granduncle and brought to perfection by her older brother – and she runs past him, shoving him out of the way, away from Eleyna and Mrs Reed, out into the dawning day.

 

⚡

 

Blood runs into her right eye, the laceration on her temple throbbing painfully, and her palms are raw and bleeding and numb, but Baelish is limping and coughing behind her, and so she doesn’t stop. The park is just around the corner, cold earth and frozen grass and blue flowers so pale they glow in the light of the rising sun despite the dark clouds hovering above her. Her legs burn with pain – one of his spells has hit the old scars, and it hurts like ice on raw skin – and she falls to her knees, burying her fingers in the forget-me-nots that grow on the base of the old, faceless weirwood tree. Moon vines and night shade blossom in its shadow, and she smiles to herself, hearing her mother’s voice from an old memory, almost forgotten and yet still there. A bolt of lightning flashes in the distance, and there a cold wind rustling in the trees overhead. “I don’t want to hurt you.” _He already did._ “I love you.” _As if._ “Just like I loved your mother.” _Ha_. She starts laughing, not like a madwoman, not out of control, just a few soft exhales, barely audible, and looks at him over her shoulder. “You never loved her, not really, and you don’t love me. You don’t know what love means”, she hisses, still smiling, and crawls back, towards the tree, the cold ground and the soft petals of the flowers calming the pain in her hands.

 

 

“If you really loved me, you wouldn’t do this, you’d leave me alone.” “I’m just trying to help you. That – that animal, that _beast_ , he doesn’t deserve you. You’re too good for him.” “And you would be better? You seem to forget how I tried to poison you.” He looks pained, his face even sharper in the bright light that warns of a storm brewing not too far off, and maybe he really thinks that he’s doing the right thing, that he’s saving her from herself. But the thing is – she doesn’t need saving. “Do you know what he did before he came here? He supported the _red priestess_ , and betrayed his pack, while I helped you flee from King’s Landing, I saved you from Joffrey and Cersei, I took care of you in the Vale, I did everything for you–” “Do I look like I care? You made them _kill_ _my father_. You helped the Freys curse my mother and brother. You killed Lysa, _in front of me_ _,_ and you still claim that you love me? Sorry if I don’t really believe that.” “Just – just come with me, and no one gets hurt, not your little siblings or those hairy and fishy and feathery people that you claim are your friends, and if you’re good I’ll even bring that sour faced little boyfriend of yours back to live–” He hovers over her, his slender hand outstretched and inviting. He’ll promise her the world if she’d let him, but she doesn’t.

 

 

No, she doesn’t let him finish his false promises – he promised to leave Robin alone, he promised not to hurt Harry, he promised to reunite her with her remaining family and take her home to Winterfell, and she is sick of how sincere and how earnest he can make his voice sound when he wants to. The only thing she believes is Jon being– she can’t think of it now; she cannot allow the pain to cloud her mind. She reaches for his hand, and the smile on his face almost reaches his eyes. He sees only her, her face and her eyes and her smile, not the way the clouds shift and cluster together, not the moths crawling out of her sleeves, with their wings sheer and glowing and sparkling, not the vines curling around his feet. He starts screaming when the first moth flies into his face, digging its razor-sharp feet into his eye, and she crawls away from him, again, but this time he’s bound and being attacked and screaming, screaming, _screaming_. Did her mother scream like that when she watched Robb being cursed? Did Robb scream, did Harry? All she hears are Lysa’s screams, still ringing in her ears after all this time, and stumbles backwards, and into the strong arms of a stranger.

 

 

She doesn’t know the man with the white beard and the rune covered arms and the battle wand in his hand, but she doesn’t struggle when he pushes her behind him and charges at Baelish, and when she turns, she sees more and more people – werewolves weary from a long night of transformations, but showing off their sharp teeth nevertheless, the wilderness in their eyes shimmering brightly, witches and warlocks with their tattoos bared and their wands raised, sirens with fire in their eyes and blood on their lips, merpeople swinging tridents and a swarm of familiars, dove and dragonflies and beetles, shining brightly before a sky of black clouds. Yohn Royce pulls her aside, away from the crowd – when did the Guild of the Vale arrive here? She doesn’t know – and towards an older warlock, battle hardened and scarred and carrying a battle wand of steel and obsidian in his left hand. “I’m so sorry that I couldn’t keep you safe”, he yells in her ear, over the noise of dozens of people casting spells at Baelish, and she recognises the soft, Riverlandic lull of his voice. “This is your uncle Brynden”, Yohn tells her, and turns around, towards the fight, while Brynden’s soft, strong hands steady her. “You’re so much like your mother. Brave, a real fighter. I can’t tell you how proud I am of you. Don’t worry, we’ll take care of this now.”

 

 

She wants to stumble into his arms and just rest her head on his shoulder – he’s half a head shorter than her – when she hears Baelish’s voice behind her. He doesn’t have to yell or scream, he doesn’t even raise his voice. “If it weren’t for them, I would’ve won. Go hide behind them. You never stood a chance against me–“ Something throbs inside of her, a second pulse, much quicker than her own, liquid ice and fire rushing through her veins, and suddenly everything is too bright for half a moment, people and animals and trees illuminated by a bolt of lightning. Baelish screams, his voice toppling over, until it stops, and the sky opens its gates. The rain is heavy, the frozen ground turns to mud, but she doesn’t care. Baelish is marked by the bolt, blue veins crawling over his skin, and his mouth opens and closes without a sound. She falls to her knees, and sits down in the mud while the people around her blink and look at their friends’ singed hair and clothes with confusion in their eyes. Her body, her soul, everything feels numb, and she doesn’t listen when Yohn Royce and Brynden stand over Baelish’s paralyzed body and talk about how she burned his magic out of him. What does it matter? Jon is dead. She’ll never hear his laughter again, or fall asleep in his arms, or –

 

Someone touches her shoulder, and she looks up in his face, his dark eyes full of worry. “I thought you were dead”, she whispers, and he falls to his knees beside her, hugging and cradling her to his chest. “I thought I’d lost you.” “No, no, sh, sweet girl, I’m here.” She’s so relieved, and she cannot keep the words in anymore. What does it matter? They almost died that night, they almost died today. Life is short.

 

_“I love you.”_

 

⚡ 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	16. xvi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A happy end

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo, a long epilogue. I wanted to give everyone a happy end, or at least one where everyone is content with the situation, and this is what happened. I hope you enjoy it - I'm already thinking about writing a little spin-off, a one-shot or two about what happens after this, or maybe a prequel, not sure yet, but there will, hopefully, be more 😊
> 
> Also a big thank to everyone who has commented on this story or given it kudos - you're awesome 🤗💕
> 
> About the bonfire part - my late Oma loved them/saint peter’s fires, and would always tell us how she jumped over one with a handsome young man (not my Opa, tho) once, back when she was a teenager.

_Six months later_

 

 

 

June

 

It is June again, and everything has changed. His conditioner has found its way into her bathroom, Ghost has left enough fur for a dog trice his size on her couch, and he has marked his next dentist appointment on the calendar in her kitchen. They have fallen into a bit of a routine – he feeds the dog and makes breakfast, she fixes them dinner most of the time, they discuss their day while still in bed, and she answers for them both in the wolves-and-witches-and sirens group chat while he kisses her neck. She only realises just how much they’ve gotten used to each other when she has to sleep on her own again, and she misses him, but it’ll be worth it, or so she hopes. Brynden knows how to find people – he has followed Baelish all these years, after all, hunting down Littlefinger’s allies and trying to kill the man himself – and once they are sure, _really sure_ , that they’re safe, he starts searching for _her_. She disappeared after Edmure’s wedding, along with her older brother, and there hasn’t been a single lead on her for years, but he’s sure that he’ll find her, now that he has the time and the resources, and Sansa is determined to help him. She knows how much it plagues him, that thought of failing everyone he ever loved, and she hopes that it’ll help Robb, as much as it can help him. They do everything, they try everything, they use Eleyna’s blood for a spell that might help them locate her, or what’s left of her, if the Lannisters or the Freys or Baelish himself have found her before they all died or left or worse. And then, after months and months of secrecy and experiments, they find her.

 

The windows are rolled all the way down, and the wind is playing with her hair, but her sweaty, naked thighs stick to the leather seat nevertheless, and she tells herself, not for the first time, that she’ll get a blanket out of the trunk and drape it over the bench during their next stop – whenever that will be. Edd doesn’t look like he’ll let anyone behind the wheel of his beloved Bulli anytime soon, and Eleyna lounges in the front beside him, her hair a curly mess and her eyes, hidden behind big sunglasses, fixated on the map in her hands, determination written clearly on her face. It’s her sister, after all, and Sansa can understand just how badly she wants to find her, remembering her own reunion with Arya and the boys after her time in KL and in the Vale, how they spent their first few nights in Riverrun sleeping in the guest room, squished together in the same bed to ward off the nightmares they all shared. She doesn’t say anything when the younger woman asks Edd to drive a few miles more, just today, _please_ _,_ Eddie, and offers to drive for an hour or two, herself. When Eleyna shoots her a thankful look, she smiles back at her.

 

The sun settles long before they reach the village they want to stay at for the night – Eleyna has planned most of this trip, thinking of her own speed and driving style, her mind clouded with the desire to see her sister again, and they’ll have to drive much longer than Edd would like every day, but Sansa is the last to complain, _because it’s about Robb_ _, too_ – and when Jon offers to take over she gladly accepts, climbing over him and snuggling into the worn leather seat. The night has brought a chill with her, and she puts on her jean jacket, glancing up at the stars above them. Jon places his hand on her thigh again, just like he did before, just like he always does, and it is warm on her naked skin. Edd starts snoring in the backseat, and the soft music coming from the radio cannot drown out the gentle humming of the engine and the noise of the cicadas. They stop when they see the fire in the distance – a bonfire burning down slowly after a feast, with only a solemn young man standing watch, and they climb onto the roof of the bus and watch the sparkles whirling up in the air and coming down again as little flakes of ash, his arm around her and her head on his shoulder, and she tells him everything she knows about the shortest night of the year and the magic that comes with it. When the fire is low enough, they jump over it, his grip on her waist strong and gentle at once, and when the young man asks them what they wished for, Jon just smiles and shakes his head. It’s perfect, and she thinks about wishing that time would stop, that they would never leave, but she doesn’t.

 

💜 

 

“I can’t believe that she made me sleep in a room with them.”, Jon grumbles the next morning, after less than four hours of sleep, and puts on a pair of sunglasses against the bright rays that make everything shine in a way that makes her think of magic. “Was it that uncomfortable?” “If you had to share a room with two guys, who’re obviously very much in love with each other, and try to hide it from you, _then_ you’d understand my suffering. It was cringeworthy.” “Oh my gods, Snow, just get over it. They’ll come out to everyone eventually and then it’ll get easier. Stop being so whiny.”, Eleyna butts in, and he rolls his eyes, but accepts the paper cup she shoves into his hand nevertheless, only partly annoyed by her interruption. He watches her climb into the bus, and turns back to Sansa, who’s still leaning against the wall of the back alley they parked the bus in, a soft smile on her lips. “I’m just happy that they’re finally together. Edd’s my best friend, after all.” “I thought Ghost was your best friend.”, he says, and tries to stir this in the right direction. There’s something he wants to ask her during this trip, after all, and he’s been waiting for the right moment far too long.

 

“He’s my other best friend. You can have more than one. And he’s almost living with me, with how much time you two spend at my place.” “Maybe he likes your place better than mine.” She closes her eyes, and he can see how she works up her courage, before she asks. “Would you like to move in with me? We’ve been together for half a year, and I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you–“ “Yes. _Yes_ , of course. Do you want to be Ghost’s co-parent.” She opens her eyes again, and he starts to stutter a bit, but she continues smiling that small, content smile, and she’s in his arms, and his wish has to come true, because magic exists. _She showed_ _it to_ _him, after all_. “You know, just putting your name in the documents and on the international records, because you already act like his mom, but, to make it official, because I love you, and I – I wanna have a family with you. Just Ghost and Lady now, of course, but in a few years we could–“ “Yes, yes, _yes_. Jon Snow, I want to have everything with you.” He kisses her, feeling her smile against his lips, and all thoughts about Eleyna and coffee and mornings too early even for him are forgotten.

 

💜

 

The hospital looks perfectly normal to him, but Brynden’s trusted contact is sure that it’s the right one, and so they end up standing in front of it after walking down a few streets – Edd didn’t want to park too close, because _‘what if someone who has an emergency needs a parking space there?’_ – and Sansa’s grip on his hand become tighter and tighter the closer they get. By the time they reach the reception, Eleyna and Sansa in the front, him being dragged behind by his girlfriend/dog co-parent, Edd and Cley tagging along a few paces behind them, near enough to provide backup, should they need it, and far enough to not scare the poor girl, should she really be here, away. The receptionist is friendly enough, but doesn’t give them any information, which doesn’t surprise him. Jeyne and Ray are, after all, in hiding, and they’ve managed to fake their death and keep themselves safe for _years_ , so of course finding them won’t be that easy, but their contact has given them a short description of what Jeyne – if it is indeed Jeyne – looks like now, and when Eleyna hands the receptionist the stack of pictures they’ve prepared, the older photographs of the shotgun wedding and of Robb when he was younger, and a selfie of Eleyna, her number written on the back of each of them in Sansa’s clear script, the older woman sighs and nods.

 

They wait in a coffeeshop across the street, Edd and Cley sitting as far apart as possible in their booth, the polar opposite of extreme PDA and yet just as awkward and uncomfortable for everyone else, both of the girls startle and almost jump out of their seats every time someone enters or leaves the shop, and his skin prickles, the nervous energy all around him affecting him, too, and so he blurts out the first thing that comes to his mind. “Everyone knows it. You’re fooling nobody.” The girls stare at him, clearly confused about his sudden outburst, but Edd and Cley look like they’ve been caught doing something naughty. “We all know it. You can stop pretending.” “Says the guy who fawned over Sansy-pants here for months.”, Eleyna teases him, but he’s just glad that they all stopped thinking about the nurse that might be Jeyne, and when Edd, blushing violently, puts his hand over Cley’s on the table, gently intertwining their fingers, Sansa smiles at them, and he knows that she’s more than grateful for his interruption. And then the door opens, and Jeyne Westerling Stark steps into the coffeeshop.

 

💜 

 

She looks different, the girl with the wild, light brown curls and the wide smile is gone, replaced by a woman in scrubs with thick eyeliner and beat-up converse sneakers and dark circles under her eyes. Her haircut is choppy, and her hair itself is dyed a blueish black. It’s a good mask, she has to admit, better than most of the disguises she has worn herself during troubling times, and she hopes that her sister-in-law will find herself again, now that she doesn’t have to hide from the world anymore. They talk about all that has happened during the short time they have – Jeyne has to be back at the hospital after her break – and she gives them her address. Her shift lasts for another few hours, but Ray will be at home, and Eleyna cannot wait to see her older brother again. She decides to stay with them for a week, and before they drive back, Sansa hugs the Westerling siblings, and gives Jeyne a picture of Robb, and his new number, hoping that she’ll call him. She does, and they do the unthinkable – they break Robb’s curse. His entire head is left scarred, a result of all the magic he had to endure, but he has human features again, a mouth that can laugh and kiss, he can go into town again –

 

 

 

_And when the night fades away under the light of a bright moon, they meet at the diner, a smile on Jon’s face and a twinkle in Sansa’s eye. They are happy again._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find the aesthetics for this chapter on [my tumblr](https://kissed-by-circe.tumblr.com/post/186430862138/it-is-june-again-and-everything-has-changed-his)


End file.
